Victor
by Cerric
Summary: When the Saiyans came under the yoke of Frieza, the tyrant took a keen interest in the promising young race. Before destroying their homeworld, he began to assemble a squadron of warriors that would rather die than fail him… Major AU.
1. Terms

Prologue

Chapter 1: Terms

A/N: Hey! New story. The idea came to me and I was super excited to write it. As I'm currently writing _Strength of Many_ as my primary project, I have no set schedule for how often I'll update this fic. Let it be known that chapter updates will be far and few between!

* * *

 _Age 731, Planet Vegeta_

The ground chosen as the neutral ground between the Saiyans and the invaders from space was the largest vessel the aliens owned. As King Vegeta stepped into an odd, disc-shaped vessel, he was sorely reminded of this fact. _I could hardly call this negotiating from a position of power..._

In the span of a day these invaders with their strange, jutting armor and mottled skin of every shade had overrun the burgeoning Saiyan settlements built on the ruins of Tuffle metropolises before them, displacing or killing thousands of his kind. The worst thing about it all was that it wasn't even _close_ \- his forces were in full retreat across the planet. _The Tuffles were one thing, but this?..._ He shook his head. _This may be beyond us..._

A hand clapped down on King Vegeta's shoulder. 'My King, are you alright?' Gerkin - his faithful lieutenant - asked.

'Yes…' King Vegeta stroked his goatee in an effort to calm himself. 'I'm alright…'

The lift came to an abrupt stop, dumping them into a small antechamber that seemed to have been converted from a cargo bay into a reception room. A variety of different aliens milled around on the room's sides, each one running back and forth with papers or information devices in their hands. King Vegeta noticed that they all had the same translation units the Saiyans had been provided with tied around their necks.

In the center of the room, even though King Vegeta lacked any measurement device on his person to confirm it, lurked a monstrously powerful being, intimidating enough through its mannerisms and aura to send literal chills down his spine. Seated in a floating chair, they ran their delighted eyes over the King and his meager entourage. Small horns protruded from the alien's head, which was dominated by a round purple plate-like surface that shone in the bright light of the spaceship. Tan shoulder pads jutted out horizontally from the alien's body, which would have looked comical on any other vastly weaker being.

A turquoise alien to the seated one's right with hair bound into a ponytail gracefully moved to the side and waved towards his apparent master. 'You are now standing in the presence of Lord Frieza, Emperor of all the known galaxy. Kneel.'

'Err - what?' one of the King's entourage sputtered out. 'We were told -'

'I said,' the alien said more forcefully, ' _kneel_.'

Fuming at his subordinate, King Vegeta very quickly fell to one knee, followed soon after by the rest of his entourage. _Someone to kill if I'm still alive by the end of this!..._

Unseen but heard by King Vegeta, Frieza clapped. 'Thank you, Zarbon. That will be all. Rise, please.'

Complying, they did so.

'Now… to whom am I speaking to?'

King Vegeta cleared his throat, then said with a grizzled authority, 'I am King Vegeta of the Saiyans. My voice, as one, speaks for all.'

'King Vegeta, pleased to make the acquaintance.' Frieza stated, his polite words not quite concealing something sinister lurking beneath.

'I understand that this is a negotiation?'

'Indeed it is. I'm not one to mince words,' Frieza stated, his eyes seeming to inspect every one of the Saiyans before him, 'so I'll get straight to the point. Any other planet that so forcefully opposed my army would have been wiped clean of any and all life. Historically, resisting my desires has not boded well for my enemies…'

King Vegeta gulped - and was sure every other person in the room heard it.

Amused, Frieza continued. 'But I seem to have found something _special_ on this backwater planet.' Frieza raised one arm and then slowly leveled a finger at King Vegeta's chest. 'You.'

The gesture was strangely terrifying to King Vegeta. 'Me - me?' he said, bewildered.

'Oh, don't be so egotistical,' Frieza replied playfully, letting his arm slacken. 'I mean your species. Your _race_.' Frieza snapped his fingers, causing a frightened technician to run up to King Vegeta's side. The technician presented to King Vegeta a series of graphs, labeled in some unreadable alien language. 'Over the past day, my scientists have been compiling huge amounts of data on your race, the… what are you?'

'We... call ourselves the Saiyans,' King Vegeta reminded.

'The Saiyans,' Frieza repeated, as if he was accommodating the word into his vocabulary. 'Hmm. Well, imagine my surprise when I discovered the Saiyans have a higher average power level than the vast majority of soldiers in my army.'

'Really?' King Vegeta examined the graphs more closely. The bar on the right was taller than the left one. A _lot_ taller. 'Is that so?'

'Yes… so I want you to understand something.' Frieza snapped his fingers again, which prompted the technician to yank the graphs out of King Vegeta's hand. 'You see… I don't mind destroying a planet full of enemies. But destroying a planet full of allies? Now, that would be a waste. I so dislike efficiency when running my domain. Do you understand?'

'I… think so, yes.' Internally, King Vegeta blanked for a moment. This would likely be his only chance to make his diplomatic appeal, judging from how their conversation had gone so far. He would have to make it count. 'I understand that, despite the bloodshed that has been spilled over the past day, there is still a chance for reconciliation between our people,' he advocated, feeling the sensation of tens of eyes staring at him. 'I am sure that we would prefer cooperation over the… alternative.'

'Very good!' Frieza said jovially, making it unclear whether he was genuinely happy or if he had intended to insult King Vegeta. 'I am glad we have a similar view on the matter. Thus, I offer my terms - fold your people into my army, and I shall let this planet continue to exist.'

Murmuring broke out among King Vegeta's entourage. _'Could he be serious?... No-one is strong enough to destroy an entire planet… we're getting a raw deal -'_

The King held up one hand, silencing them. 'If I understand you correctly, you wish to use the Saiyans as soldiers in your army?'

'More like mercenaries. I will assign to you contracts that you may distribute among your warriors at your discretion. My scientists and engineers will descend on this planet and grant your people the latest technology my empire has to offer to prepare your people to voyage across the galaxy in fulfillment of their duties. Effectively, I offer to the Saiyans a privileged position within my realm.'

King Vegeta thought on this offer. It would be unorthodox to accept the first offer made in a negotiation, but then again, the pretense of this being anything but a surrender was a useless fiction to cling to. Intuitively, he did desire to be on the receiving end of Frieza's ire. 'These terms are acceptable,' King Vegeta announced. 'The Saiyans love to fight, and would have no problem traveling to new planets in search of worthy opponents - though I ask that we would be free to live as we please on Planet Vegeta.'

'Hmm?' Frieza looked at King Vegeta quizzically. 'An odd request. But not unheard of. You seek to remain King?...'

'I only wish to retain the customs of our culture. Our monarchy is but one part of that.'

'Fair enough. I will grant it. Though…'

A pang of fear gripped King Vegeta. 'Though… what?'

'I realize that I do not know much about the Saiyans beyond the information you've provided to me today,' Frieza said, his gaze never lifting from King Vegeta, 'and even that information could be a bald-faced _lie._ Why should I believe the word of the first representative I speak to from a race I've never encountered? Perhaps you wish to mislead me to gather your forces and make an attempt on my life? Or maybe you conspire with my enemies and a fleet of alien warlords rush to this planet in your defense as we speak?' Frieza's eyes narrowed. 'Thus, I wonder: what can I anchor my trust in you to?'

Frieza paused, letting a suffocating silence momentarily descend on the room. King Vegeta felt like he was choking. _Certainly he's negotiated before… what is he trying to achieve?_

'Luckily,' Frieza continued, 'I have watched you as a leader. It is clear that your subjects respect you.' Frieza's gaze then began to roam the faces of the Saiyans that attended King Vegeta. 'It is telling when a ruler's servants display such deference to their liege. Though - ' Frieza suddenly swept his eyes at someone to King Vegeta's left, ' - what do you plan to do to him as punishment for his earlier outburst?'

King Vegeta turned. Before he had had a guess as to who had interrupted him; now he had a face. Ruka visibly squirmed under King Vegeta's heavy gaze. 'My King, I only expressed our collective frustration at being treated like underlings by these aliens! Our people have not surrendered the will to fight! We would rather die before we become slaves to an alien overlord! Surely you think the same!'

King Vegeta frowned. Ruka had been with him since the very beginning of the war with the Tuffles - but the past was the past. In the present, Ruka has sealed his own fate. 'I will kill him myself once we are done here,' King Vegeta said authoritatively, causing Ruka to flinch. 'Guards, seize him and take him outside.'

A mass of bodies suddenly descended on Ruka, entangling the Saiyan before he could say anything more. A few seconds later, he was dragged against his will to the lift and then dropped out of sight.

'Good,' Frieza said, a sickly sweet smile covering his face. 'Very good. I see now that not only do we agree with each other, but we also _understand_ each other.'

'I am glad.' King Vegeta felt a trickle of sweat run down his forehead. Things had gone better than he could have hoped; why, then, did he feel such palpable dread? 'Are we agreed, then? Do I have verbal confirmation of a relationship of sorts between us?'

'Yes -' Frieza gestured to Zarbon to his right, who promptly stepped forward. 'Zarbon here will hammer out the fine details with you in the weeks to come. He will also personally oversee my… directive, acting as my representative on this planet.'

'Your directive?' King Vegeta felt another droplet of sweat roll down his neck. 'What do you mean?'

'There is something of a… tradition... within my domain,' Frieza explained. 'I have an eye for talent others would miss. From across the galaxy, I recruit the strongest warriors to serve as my elite.' Frieza's gaze lingered on the King. 'It is unimportant to say any more at this time. But know that a time will come when you must accede to my demands in this regard. And when this time comes, I expect no dissent.'

'I… understand.' King Vegeta said, bowing his head.

'Good,' Frieza's chair suddenly whirred to life. 'Tell your people to stand down. The next wave of people I will send at them will be scientists, not soldiers.' The chair began to rotate and hover out of the room. 'I look forward to what comes of today…' As Frieza left the room, he took over half of the aliens milling around in the room with him.

As the chair disappeared around a corner, Zarbon approached King Vegeta. 'My lord Frieza will be leaving this planet shortly. Thus, my officials and I will need a few minutes to prepare for his departure. I would suggest you and your entourage wait outside for our exit.'

King Vegeta nodded. After Zarbon had walked away to attend to his personnel, Gerkin approached. 'My King? Ruka is waiting outside,' he informed King Vegeta.

Snarling, King Vegeta turned and strode back to the lift. 'Good. I'll kill the fool myself.'

* * *

 _Age 732,_ _Planet Vegeta_

King Vegeta's firstborn son, who was born on a dark, stormy night amidst a chorus of fury and sound, had only been alive for a few days before the order came.

It had broken the King's heart. He was still frantically considering his options when the doors to his throne room swung open. Flanked by two bald, green aliens wielding blasters on their right arms, Zarbon strutted into the chamber. 'King Vegeta, a pleasure as always,' he said diplomatically. His eyes then drifted to what looked to be a temporary crib placed next to the throne. 'I see that you have prepared him for transport.' He gave a slight smile. 'Good. Frieza will be pleased to know of your efficient compliance.'

There was a modest number of various Saiyan officials in the room in addition to the King and his son, though most of the court had been dismissed in the previous hour. Some of them aggressively eyed Zarbon and his two soldiers stride farther into the throne room. Intermittently, they glanced to King Vegeta for direction.

He could give none; his hands incessantly wrung themselves. 'I grasp the request made of me… but surely I can discuss this further with Lord Frieza?' King Vegeta asked nervously, his eyes trained on Zarbon. 'Surely you can understand my own shock when this order came not a few hours ago?'

'Oh, I understand perfectly,' Zarbon said, drawing closer. 'You are not the first client ruler to offer a hostage to Lord Frieza, and you won't be the last…'

A few tense seconds passed as the two soldiers planted themselves in the middle of the room as Zarbon glided over to the crib. King Vegeta, hanging around the crib, suddenly put himself in Zarbon's path.

'But… please!' King Vegeta pleaded. 'This demand is too harsh! You would forever separate a first-born son from his father the King?'

Zarbon smiled gleefully. 'Have another child if you're so concerned. As far as _I'm_ concerned, this one will be Frieza's…' A hand dove into the crib- and was gripped at its wrist by King Vegeta.

They struggled for a moment; King Vegeta's face hardened. 'Please! I-'

A single blast of purple left the palm of Zarbon's free hand and impaled the King, piercing clean through his royal armor so carefully crafted by alien armorers. A second later, a corpse collapsed back into the throne.

The surrounding Saiyans froze, terrified at seeing their King so easily executed. Zarbon yanked the Saiyan baby by his tail out of the crib. 'I'll be leaving now,' he announced.

Without any harassment, he, the baby, and the two soldiers left in stunned silence. Blood ran down the throne in thin streams.

* * *

 _Age 733, in a distant stretch of space_

A faint buzzing rang throughout Frieza's private quarters. Somewhat annoyed, Frieza wrenched his gaze from the stars rolling past his room's window. 'What is it?' He said out loud.

' _My lord,'_ a soldier's voice spoke from a nearby intercom, _'Zarbon has docked from Planet Vegeta. He wishes to see you.'_

'Fine. Send him through.'

There was a quiet shuffle of movement outside the door to Frieza's quarters before the door slid open, revealing Zarbon. He gave a curt bow. 'Lord Frieza.'

'Come now,' Frieza snipped. 'What compelled you to disturb me?'

'Sire… it's incredible.' Zarbon handed over a datapad, no more than a metal outline with a projected screen between it. 'The child taken from King Vegeta is extraordinary.'

Frieza scrolled downwards on the datapad and skimmed the first few pages. A scowl progressively deepened on his face. 'If what I'm reading is correct,' he said, never lifting his gaze towards Zarbon, 'then the power level of King Vegeta's son would be comparable to the strength of my own elites when they were born. _More_ than them, in some cases.'

'That would seem to be the case, sire.'

'This is… unexpected.' He handed the datapad back to Zarbon. 'I now understand why you brought this to my attention.'

'If the matter was any more trivial, I would not have bothered you with it, sire.'

'These tests were done after his father died, correct?'

'Yes. There is no doubt as to their accuracy - I have conducted every examination of the young prince possible. They all say the same thing.'

'Hmm… Zarbon,' Frieza dictated with clear pronunciation, 'you've had a chance to live among these Saiyans for some time. It is clear that the vast majority of them are suited to be nothing more than grunts. But tell me; do you think they could become loyal warriors for my cause?'

'Hard to say, sire,' Zarbon responded. 'if you were asking me about the average Saiyan, I would say no. They're prone to possessing bloated egos and fighting against any authority they don't respect.' Zarbon paused. 'But I don't think that's inherent to every Saiyan. That's probably a trait of their culture more than anything else. They lack… refinement, in a word.'

Frieza's gaze grew distant. 'So you think that if you separate the Saiyan from the Saiyans, they would become more amenable to my authority?...'

'That is what I believe, yes.'

The room fell silent, save for the gentle pulse of the circulated air flowing through the spaceship. Zarbon was accustomed to such silence among his master - it was a sign that Lord Frieza was thinking.

'I trust your judgment, Zarbon,' Frieza decided. 'Keep an eye on any noteworthy births among the Saiyans. Cultivate when the time is right.'

'Of course, sire.' A thought then occurred to Zarbon. 'Are you going to keep calling that Saiyan baby by his Saiyan name, my lord? Should I retain the names of any other Saiyans that I extract?'

'Oh, let them keep whatever names they're assigned.' Frieza took a sip from his glass. 'I'll need _something_ to differentiate the hairy things from one another, after all.'

'Very good, sire.'

Frieza took a moment to set the datapad down and look out at the vast stretch of space before him. 'It's funny how things work out. Who would have thought a royal captive would have become actually _useful_? Most of the time they're pampered brats that couldn't survive a spanking, much less an actual battle… But this Saiyan one, Vegeta… he might actually be useful! Haha! Hilarious!'

'Very funny, sire.'

'Hmm.' Disinterested by Zarbon's servile response, Frieza turned towards his lieutenant. 'You're dismissed, Zarbon.'

He gave a curt bow before exiting the room, the slick metal door sliding closing behind him.

* * *

Gerkin patrolled the length of the throne room, his eyes tracing where King Vegeta's body had lain just a few hours before.

The Kingslayer had absconded with the heir unopposed. A righteous fury shot through Gerkin's veins, which he now let flow unabated after suppressing it earlier. In the seconds after the King had been killed, he nearly flew into a murderous rage against that pretentious turquoise alien- but had been correct not to. Zarbon was beyond his or any other Saiyan's capabilities; to fight him would have been suicide. The new scouters they had received from Frieza made that clear enough.

 _But to fail…_ he clenched one hand, shaking. _In such a manner!..._ He had been appointed bodyguard only to stand aside in his King's moment of death. Maybe if he had interceded before things progressed as far as they did, King Vegeta's death could have been avoided… or maybe that would have caused the death of every single person in that room. Nonetheless, he should have tried.

He would not allow himself to lapse in such a way ever again. _Not while-_ Gerkin shook his head, clearing a recurrent thought from his brain. _Atonement would come later._

As he lapped the room again, a spot of red caught his attention. Bending down, be ran the tip of his finger across the floor. It came back slick and red. _Blood. Our King bled like the rest of us..._

'Still skulking around here, are you?' a voice asked from the shadows on the edge of the room.

Gerkin grimaced, wiping his finger clean on one of his armbands. 'Have you finished talking with the council?' he asked, standing.

'More or less. They agree that an heir in captivity cannot ascend to the throne as a prisoner - or worse.'

'Things would be different if the Queen still lived,' Gerkin said bitterly. 'A regent would have been acceptable…'

They fell into silence. After several seconds, the speaker asked, 'Have you began to coordinate our plans?'

'I have already instructed some to investigate what has been done with the Prince. Our penetration of Frieza's empire is limited - it will take some time before we will have a comprehensive system in place to catch all the comings and goings of the heir. I imagine Frieza will whisk him away to some place of his empire far away from here.'

'You care that much about the King's son?' The speaker in the shadows questioned.

'I have failed my King once,' Gerkin replied cooling, turning to the speaker. 'I do not intend to do that twice in one lifetime.'

The speaker grunted. 'So, otherwise, we are agreed as to what must be done?'

'We stall for time,' Gerkin said gruffly. 'However long we can drag this arrangement with Frieza out. When the time comes where we have the strength to oppose him, we act. In the meantime, we spread out our own across the galaxy, just in case.'

'You're that worried about Frieza, huh?' The speaker asked almost casually.

'His strength is monstrous,' Gerkin said harshly, 'and he is unbound by any constraints - if he wishes to destroy this planet in the future, he will.'

A pause. 'I have a brat firstborn with a pretty tiny power. Should I convince Gine to send him away?'

'It's for the best. Can you arrange to sent him to a planet far off any galactic map?'

The speaker stepped out of the shadows, revealing his wild mane of spiky black hair and chuckling. 'Consider it done. In the meantime, you're okay with me being King?'

'None shall oppose you. I will make sure of that.'

They clasped hands. 'To the Saiyan Race.'

'To the Saiyans.'

* * *

 _Age 737, Planet Vegeta_

As his ship skated through space with the ease of a comet, Frieza luxuriated in his private chambers. He wasn't in a particularly good mood.

 _Why does Father get the right to criticize my management? While he has withdrawn himself to the farthest-flung corners of the galaxy, cutting himself off from all the important details of management, I have gone from planet to planet in a never-ending campaign of administration!_ He huffed. _And he says nothing to Cooler! Even as he further tightens his inner circle…_ By all accounts, the meeting between the three of them had soured his week. _Although_ , Frieza thought, sighing, _I guess I should be glad I won't have to meet with them for at least another decade…_

 _Father and Cooler's physical and social reticence does them a disservice. It seems that I alone recognize the need to be accessible to my subjects..._ Smirking, Frieza turned his attention to the space rushing past the ship outside. _Terror and all._

An impetuous paging sound assailed Frieza's senses- sighing, he accepted the communication request.

A hazy image of Zarbon immediately popped up on his screen. 'Sire,' he said, bowing.

'Get on with it,' Frieza growled.

'My lord, I have identified two more candidates, but…'

Frieza imperiously wrinkled his nose. 'But?'

'The Saiyans are growing restless. It seems that their King, Bardock, cares nothing for placating them. There is open talk of a revolt against your rule, not to mention the night-time killings of some of my more vulnerable personnel.'

'What is this unrest in response to?'

'Unclear, sire. Personally, I would characterize it a manifestation of the Saiyans' inherent unruliness.'

Something flickered across Frieza's features. 'Funny. Zarbon,' Frieza said slowly, 'give me your honest opinion: do you think the Saiyans have outlived their usefulness?'

There was a pause. 'I think only you can answer that, sire,' Zarbon replied, his voice garbled by the transmission. 'Their effectiveness as soldiers is undeniable… their loyalty, however, is more circumspect.'

Another pause. 'If you retrieved these two candidates,' Frieza asked, 'what would that bring our numbers up to?'

'Five, sire.'

A cruel smile rose on Frieza' face. 'Prepare the two for transport,' he commanded. 'Then extract them from the planet as fast as possible. Request additional forces for deterrence or even use force if need be. Above all else, deliver to me those two Saiyan babies alive.'

'Very good, sire. Then?'

'Then? I'll deal with the Saiyans myself. Do you understand?'

Zarbon nodded. 'I'll start evacuating non-essential personnel from this planet immediately. Zarbon out.'

* * *

 _A few days later..._

Zarbon wasn't requested when Frieza had emerged from the ship to take stock of the raging battle himself. When this happened, the longtime aide to the ruler of most of the known galaxy knew what was coming.

With an air of professional detachment, he watched the Saiyan army swarming the upper atmosphere of Planet Vegeta be either dispersed or consumed by a giant death ball hurtling towards the surface. Zarbon guessed the planet had a few minutes of existence left to its name, if not less.

 _A pity._ He felt torn- in the Saiyans, he had seen potential buried underneath centuries of violent conflict. They couldn't be faulted for being more liable to kill each other than to fight, defeat, and conquer other planets or people. Though perhaps he shouldn't be too broken up about it. _I now have the others to oversee, after all..._

After some time had passed, Frieza reappeared, floating gracefully back to the ship. A quick hop in and out of an airlock either, and he was walking side by side with Zarbon.

'Shows them what they get,' Frieza said self-assuredly. The frost demon's tail squirreled back and forth behind him - a telltale sign that he was pleased. 'Admittedly, I am impressed by their planning and gall- but no amount of worthless Saiyan bodies thrown at me will slow me down. For all their pitiful effort, the end result was the same…'

'So… it is done?'

'Completely and utterly.'

Their walk took them to Frieza's private chambers. The doors detected them and automatically slid open. As Frieza walked into the room, Zarbon asked, 'My lord… What about any other Saiyans? The ones who weren't on Planet Vegeta, that is.'

'Who cares?' Frieza levitated over to his chair and sat in it. From behind him, Zarbon heard the sound of glassware clinking, followed by a glass of wine levitating over to Frieza's outstretched hand. After a long sip, he spoke again. 'Strike their names from the records. Bar them entry at any PTO outpost. Criminalize their _existence._ Saiyans who haven't grown up under my thumb are dangerous.' Frieza's eyes wandered over to the vast window covering the entire right side of the chamber. 'Am I clear, Zarbon?' He said, not deigning to look at his underling.

Zarbon ducked his head and nodded. 'Perfectly, sire. It will be done.'

'Good. Leave me.'

Obliging, Zarbon promptly exited the room.

Taking another long drag from his wine glass, Frieza refocused his attention just in time to see Planet Vegeta's outline start to shimmer. With a smile on his face, he watched the Saiyans be all but extinguished from the galaxy.

* * *

 _A/N: Hope this chapter gives you a good idea of the universe. Frieza took a much more keen eye towards the Saiyans' strength, while still realizing that they were a threat when gathered together. Under his control, he hopes a select few will prove to be more useful._

 _Also, any readers of Strength of Many might notice I'm trying to write this story a bit "tighter_ ", _if that makes sense. Additionally, I'm trying to take a more variant chronological approach- sections of a chapter might take place years before the most recent event depicted, at least until the first arc is over. So far I think this had made for an interesting start!_


	2. The Renegade

Duty

Chapter 2: The Renegade

A/N: Second chapter! Belated to say the least! Hope you enjoy! AND thank you to Lionheart261 (who writes many a good dbz fic, like _Hermit_ or _Forgotten Son_ ) for looking over this chapter! I appreciate that!

* * *

Above the stained, muggy green veneer that the planet Ysa kept as an atmosphere, four dots, arranged in a V-formation, steadily flew towards the planet's surface. As they crossed the border between pure space and the upper reaches of Ysa's thick, polluted skies, superheated air began to take the color of orange, shrouding them in a tapestry that trailed past them. What was such a fiery, churning approach for the four occupants of those pods- when the walls of their cockpits grew scalding and could singe their flesh from the slightest touch, and the smell of smoke filled that one and only room of their ships- would, to any person on the ground, appeared as nothing more than a twinkle of red against a darkened and plodding sky.

Far below the secluded scars, beneath the thick bands of green and submerged in air as thick as poison, a dirty man with short, black-and-gray hair sat back on a piece of grey and square-shaped rubble. More rubble like it was strewn around him, ranging from chunks no larger than his hand to massive, mile-long sections that divided and bent the land with their weight and width. The air hung heavy here.

The man, who was absentmindedly fiddling with a device affixed over the left side of his head, turned his attention towards the sky. Green… with four specks of red. From its spot over his left eye, his scouter, worn and ancient, chirped and buzzed.

'About time.' As he stood, the man's tail, usually kept wrapped around the waist of his cracked and bleached tunic of random, decayed, and discarded pieces of armor, uncoiled and twitched behind him. Sweat dampened his face and neck.

He had dreamt of this day for more than thirty years. One way or another, he would soon be free of that dream.

* * *

In one of the ships spearing through the sky, locked into a short, rocky descent to the planet's surface that felt longer than it actually was, its occupant waited.

' _Remember_ ,' a voice buzzed into his left ear. His scouter on that side of his head must have reactivated at some point during planetary entry. ' _This man and his group have killed numerous elites in a single go. He or anyone else is not to be engaged alone. Once we land, we're to meet up and pursue him as a unified group._ _ **No**_ _smartassery.'_

 _'Concerned for us?'_ another voice, thick with amusement, said.

 _'For the others? No. For you? Yes.'_

 _'_ Hah,' Vegeta, trapped within a space just big enough to fit him sitting, laughed. His voice sounded odd and muffled to his ears. 'Hah, hah. Good one, Cagoria.'

' _It's good advice_ ,' a third voice said.

' _Such a_ _ **kiss-up**_ _, Vegeta,'_ the amused voice said. ' _It's a true mystery as to why you get to make snide comments at your leisure.'_

Unseen by anyone, Vegeta's face soured. ' _It's a_ _ **true**_ _mystery as to_ _ **why**_ _I_ _ **make**_ _them,'_ Vegeta mocked back. ' _Perhaps it is because I work with a_ _ **child**_ _.'_

' _You've both made mistakes becoming of children before_ ,' Cagoria, the first voice, said sharply. _'Don't make me babysit you today. Cagoria out.'_ The _click_ of someone disconnecting from their shared channel sounded into their ears. Vegeta took a deep, angry breath.

' _We can hear you huffing_ ,' the third voice said, before Vegeta heard again a _click_.

' _Well_ ,' the second voice said, ' _I'd say that was a win for me. Baited enough dumb malice out of you that Cagoria was forced to reprimand you. Wouldn't you agree, Vegeta?'_

The words echoed in his ears. With a snarl, Vegeta swiped a hand across the side of his scouter and disconnected himself. Around him, the ship still rattled and rolled with the violence of atmospheric entry.

 _Damn him! Damn that sniveling, infantile idiot! Damn you,_ _ **Kakarot!**_

Even thinking of his name reignited his hatred and filled his mind with a hundred little things he'd like to do to that clown, if- if they weren't bound together. Vegeta sighed. It wouldn't do to indulge his imagination. They fought together on the battlefield, and would continue to do so until Cagoria told him not to.

Light flared from the top of the room. The ship was beginning its landing sequence.

 _If I'm lucky, he will die here. What I would give to be rid of that troll..._

* * *

Among the four ships, shaped into spherical balls with a single hatch, the sleekest and most polished of them all landed first, scoring a trench down the side of a slope. When the pod's movement ceased, the hatch hissed and swung open through lines of heat and smoke. Without any break in her movement, a strong, muscular, and well-proportioned woman surged out of the ship. She had shoulder-length black hair with silver streaks running through it pulled back and tied behind her head, and was adorned in black-as-night armor segmented by gray lines that covered her torso. In the upper right part of her torso, three parallel, thin, and white lines were scored diagonally towards the center of her body. A dark-gray jumpsuit clothed her arms and legs arms and legs, and white gloves and boots covered the ends of her limbs.

The twilight of the planet's surface- created by whatever light could get through its thick and dense atmosphere- also showed a feature of hers that the darkness of the pod could not. A deep scar, healed-over and old, ran in a line from the tip of her chin along the edge of her jawline to just beneath her right ear. She scratched at it and surveyed the horizon to her left.

Ships similar to her own strode through the sky and impacted the ground, throwing up recognizable plumes of gray-brown dust. With these in view, she set off towards them.

Once near, she landed atop of a hill overlooking all three landing sites and waited. The first one out of the dust, another woman armored and dressed the same as her, albeit while in this apparel looked skinnier and less muscular than her and had shorter black hair, climbed up the hill while fiddling with a flimsy-looking scouter wobbling over his left eye.

One of Cagoria's eyebrows lifted. 'Scouter giving you trouble, Sashe?' she asked.

'Yes,' Sashe replied curtly. She finished climbing the hill and stopped at Cagoria's side.

'Gave up?' Cagoria asked.

Sashe looked at her, and glanced away. 'Yep.'

Cagoria smiled and turned her attention to the two remaining dust plumes. 'How long do you think it'll take for them to get out?'

'They're always slow. You know this.'

'That I do.'

Their conversation stopped there. Cagoria was pleased. Sashe was, despite her usual reticence, always a reassuring presence at her side. Cagoria appreciated not needing to micromanage _every_ member of her team and having confidence in the competency of at least one person under her. With Sashe, she got both.

'There's one,' Sashe said, pointing a finger to the right. 'There.'

Cagoria swiveled her attention from the other plume to the right. A jolt of adrenaline ran through her body. She suppressed it.

A man, with a chaotic mane of hair that somehow came together into a manificent spiky shape, strode up the hill, glancing between them at the ground underneath his feet. Cagoria found herself staring at the outline his jumpsuit made on his body. She wrenched her gaze away and chided herself. There was a time and place for that.

'Problem, Cagoria?' Kakarot asked, a slight smile on his face, once he was up the hill and saw that she was quite obviously looking away from him.

'A smile,' Sashe observed. 'There's always some kind of smile on your face, Kakarot. Could be she's sick of seeing it.'

Cagoria laughed, and turned her head back towards them. Her expression was sturdy. 'To use Vegeta's words, a "clown" would do that.'

'Oh?' Kakarot cocked his head. 'He's said that of me?'

'Whenever you're not around.'

Sashe glanced between them, frowned, and looked off into an altogether different direction. In the process, she spotted the last of their team. 'He's coming up now,' she said, catching the attention of Cagoria and Kakarot.

Under their gazes, a man, shorter than Kakarot and Cagoria and just a few inches taller than Sashe, trudged up the hill. He was almost as muscular as Cagoria, had only slightly more reasonable hair- which pointed up and above him like a flame- than Kakarot, and was nearly as closed with his body language as Sashe was. But, somehow, Vegeta was altogether different from the sum of these parts.

When he reached the top of the hill, Vegeta examined them. 'The hatch to my pod seized up,' he said. 'But I am not the type to give excuses. So disregard what I just said.'

'Funny,' Kakarot commented. 'My pod hatch seized up, too. Still managed to beat you here, though.'

' _Did it_ , though?'

Cagoria had had her fill of bickering on the descent. 'You all ready?' she asked.

Vegeta threw one more glare at Kakarot and turned to Cagoria. Kakarot, with much more subdued glee, did the same. Cagoria was satisfied.

'Good.' she said. 'So- Vegeta, take point. My scouter says the target is just a few miles out and hasn't moved since we arrived. Probably means that they're waiting for us, and it _definitely_ means that they've got a trap in mind. So we're going to walk, take it slow, diamond formation, with me in the rear and Kakarot and Sashe in the center. And _remember_ ,' she stressed, hardening her gaze. 'We don't separate. Got that?'

Steel-faced, they nodded back.

'Alright. Let's go.'

* * *

They were deep into a dense area of ruin when they were forced to stop. They had all been briefed that a failed purge had taken place on this planet- some kind of chemical weapon had detonated, knocking the planet off its axis and screwing with the planet's surface conditions. The air became thick and foul, and scarce amounts of light reached the surface. Temperatures ranged drastically depending on the whims of weather and time.

None of this was a concern to them; they had trained in some of the harshest planetary environments in the known galaxy. All the lonely rubble strewn around from ruined metropolises- and the problems that created with finding their way around knowing what was around them at all times - was, however.

'Okay,' Cagoria said as soon as they grouped together. 'We need to do something about this visibility. We can't fight Frieza-knows how many Saiyans in a maze. Any ideas?'

'Blow it all up,' Kakarot suggested. 'Nothing of worth here, anyway.'

'Not a good use of _ki_ ,' Cagoria said, shooting down Kakarot's idea. 'Not at least until we know we're facing the bulk of them.'

'Take to the skies?' Sashe offered.

'They could pick us off from their hiding spots,' Vegeta said dismissively. 'Shower the sky with _ki_ until we're forced down again.'

Cagoria leaned back and scratched along her scar. 'Vegeta?'

'...We could back out of the city and wait for them to come to us.'

Kakarot snorted. 'That's the best you got?'

'I would ask if you had any better ideas, but _as we already know_ , you don't.'

'This isn't the time for-' Cagoria halted. Her gaze was trained on her scouter. 'Many signals moving,' she said. 'Moving _towards us._ They're close!'

The sound of rubble shifting, coming from every direction, filled the air.

'Saiyans!' Cagoria roared, before pivoting around and slamming a punch into someone charging at her. The woman's chest buckled underneath hers, and she flopped to the ground, dead. 'Easy enough!'

'Just like the briefing said!' Kakarot replied, whipping his _ki_ -wrapped leg beneath an opponent that had run up to him and snapping a leg in two. As the Saiyan fell to the ground, crying, Kakarot stepped forward and enveloped him with a _ki_ blast. 'Just as weak, too!'

As the four of them grouped together, dispatching the wave of ragged-looking Saiyans that rushed them, they failed to notice a figure hovering in the air above them. As the most well-armored of his group, he crinkled and rustled as he oriented his body to the ground and pointed a hand down towards them. When an attack leaped from him, it was as ungainly and rickety as his appearance, and appeared to snake down at the four of them with no apparent control.

Which, of course, was planned. Five feet above them, this seemingly haphazard attack split off into four separate beams, and smacked into every one of the team's scouters. Sparks and metal flew from their heads as every one of them hopped back and glanced to the sky.

'CONTINGENCY!' Cagoria yelled, moving even further back and pressing her back against Vegeta's. 'CONTINGENCY!'

Sashe and Kakarot backpedaled and did the same as Cagoria, forming a square with their literal backs to each other. In unison, they clasped hands and lifted their arms, surrounding themselves in a mighty combined yellow aura.

Another wave of Saiyans charged at them. When their attackers came within striking distance, Cagoria led Vegeta, Kakarot, and Sashe in pumping their arms down. The ground around them exploded for miles around

* * *

An immeasurable amount of dust kicked into the air, turning low-visibility conditions into no-visibility conditions. Coughing, Cagoria held out her arms and looked at them. She couldn't see the tips of her fingers.

'Everyone accounted for?' She called out. Nearby grunts answered her. 'Good,' she continued. 'So… everyone move towards my voice, and…'

Cagoria trailed off. The sound of many feet moving, smacking themselves across the ground, hit them. In the dust-filled hell they now occupied, noise bounced and sat in the air, making it impossible for them to determine if they were facing five Saiyans or five hundred.

'Hold!...' Cagoria urged, digging her feet into the ground. 'We must have thinned most of them with our previous attack- we're over the hump!'

The aural chaos grew louder. If anyone from her team was trying to reach her by the sound of her voice, she was unhearable now. 'HOLD!...'

The blows of battle reached their ears. The Saiyans threw themselves on them again.

0o0o0

Somewhere in the brown haze, Sashe spotted a recognizable set of armor streak past her. 'Hey!' she yelled, as she knocked a Saiyan's head to the ground with a right hook. 'Come back!'

She dashed through across the ground, trailing a person-sized shape in the dust. Her pursuit led her over across rubble and ruin, and stopping atop what used to be a low-rise apartment, she abruptly jumped back.

A fist swung through the spot she was standing in, leaving a streak of dust in its wake. Lithe, Sashe flattened herself to the ground and spun, whirling her legs around her in a circle. She felt her shins hit her opponent, and she heard something bang down the side of the building just after. Springing up, she ran over to the top's edge. _Got you now!_

Past the edge, there was nothing but dust… and no sign of who she had been pursuing. Thinking quick, she used her aura and flushed it through the air, pushing away dust and debris and making the area around her visible. She still couldn't find him.

 _Damn… missed him!_ She glanced around. Dust she had just pushed away was moving back. _Damn! Missed everyone! He led me away! And I don't have a scouter to help me get back!_

* * *

The vibrations of someone moving away from her, no doubt caused by heavy stomps to the ground, alerted Cagoria. _Not one of mine! They wouldn't dare retreat!_ She swung to her right, spotted a vague shape in the dust, and throttled the crackling _ki_ charging in her right hand. 'Leaving so soon!?' she yelled, releasing her attack.

In the deadened air, the blast carved a visible path through the dust- and, because of this, right before impact, Cagoria recognized Kakarot's back. Her heart dropped and she started running forward even before the attack landed.

The wind and energy released from the blast buffeted but did not deter her, as she forced herself against the prevailing pressure until her will broke through and the forces opposing her died out. Once through, she sank to her knees beside a prone Kakarot. Concern caused her hands to fly towards his back. 'Oh, dear Frieza- Kakarot!-'

She froze as soon as she saw Kakarot had his head turned to his left, was looking at her with his left eye, and was smiling. 'Invoking Emperor Frieza's name, huh? You're _that_ concerned about me?'

Like a mask sliding into place, her composure immediately returned. 'Good to see you can still take a pounding from me,' she said, standing. She furrowed her brow. 'I- wait. Sorry. I meant to say "take a punch-'

Kakarot sprinted to his feet and moved closer to Cagoria. His face was mere inches away from hers. 'Not sure about that,' he said, his hands hovering close to hers. 'I think-'

'Not the time,' she said, taking one long step backward. Her entire posture and expression was unchanged from the instant she had realized Kakarot was fine. ' _Really_ not the time.' She looked away from him and scanned their surroundings.

No longer under her gaze, Kakarot pouted. 'But-'

'You're never to speak of this,' she said without looking at him. 'Not with anyone, and _especially_ not with me. What we have is nothing more than what it is, and nothing more than what we are. Got it?'

Kakarot breathed. 'Yes.'

'Good.' She paused. 'Now help me find some other damn person on this battlefield.'

* * *

The dust drew thicker together with every passing second. The sounds of battle became distant as what he could see steadily winnowed. At the expense of linking up with his team, Vegeta was forced to heighten his senses and attune himself to his environment to prevent anyone from sneaking up on him. So far, he had been right to do so. The score of dead Saiyan bodies at his feet was proof of that.

'The Second of the Vanguard, Vegeta…'

The voice had come from nearby, close enough to startle Vegeta when he heard it. _I should have heard footsteps before I heard someone speak… Hmm…_

' _Prince…'_

The second sentence, uttered from- from what Vegeta could tell- the same spot, allowed him to pinpoint where the voice was coming from. He advanced through the dust until an outline of a man- _the_ man from earlier who destroyed their scouters- appeared. 'You have something to say to me before I kill you?' Vegeta said gruffly.

The outline stepped forward, and man it represented revealed himself. Besides him rubbing his shins, he appeared unbothered and unharmed- _which means our earlier attack didn't even touch him._ Vegeta narrowed his eyes. _I'll have to be careful with this one._

'I doubt that you know me,' the man said, stopping several feet away from Vegeta. 'So, in an ironic twist of fate, I must introduce myself to you.' He stepped back, dropped to one knee, and hung his head to the ground. 'I am Gerkin, adviser, general, and sworn soldier of the deceased King Vegeta of the Saiyans.'

Vegeta's expression lifted. 'Gerkin?' he repeated. 'The old royal? I've heard of you- you're one of the most infamous Saiyans we know of.' He clenched his hands into fists. 'It will do my Lord and my team good to bring back your corpse.'

Gerkin appraised him. He looked disappointed. 'Yes, you would think that. They've determined everything you've ever thought, haven't they? Frieza and his lackeys, that is. Your perception of the galaxy is warped.' Gerkin paused. 'You don't recognize me? From long before now?'

'I recognize your face from every wanted hologram in the galaxy,' Vegeta shot back.

'That is to be expected,' Gerkin agreed. 'But I was there when you were _born_ , Prince Vegeta. I saw your father watch over you… your father, _King Vegeta_. He named you after himself, you know.'

'Are you being serious?' Vegeta smirked unabashedly. 'King Vegeta is my _father?'_ he said, barking laughter. 'And I'm a _Prince?_ I can see now why you've _personally_ bombed countless planets to their bedrock only to move on without gaining anything- you're quite clearly insane- really, in claiming this, you might be the most unhinged Saiyan I've ever met!'

'You speak of actions that were necessary,' Gerkin said without affect. 'Saiyans once were conquerors, decimators, and did such at their whim. It is important to remind both ourselves and others of this fact.'

Vegeta laughed again. 'Your race's treachery is the stuff of legends, old man,' he said. 'Even now, the remnants of your people pop up around the galaxy, thwarting the good work of our Emperor and his loyal lieutenants in bringing the rest of the galaxy under his heel.' With evident pleasure, Vegeta brandished a smirk. 'There is nothing more faithful I can do for Lord Frieza than to kill you and every single person of your wretched race.'

Gerkin sharpened his expression. 'Why is it that you have the name Vegeta?' he questioned, staring into Vegeta's eyes. 'Why do you have the same name as a former leader of the Saiyans? Can you so easily dismiss my truth? Vegeta is a _Saiyan_ name.'

With easy grace, Vegeta pressed his eyes closed and smiled. 'There is a story to that. A story that, of course, you are not entitled to. Besides, if I really was a Saiyan- where is my tail?' He opened his eyes and shot a knowing look over to Gerkin. 'I thought every Saiyan had one.'

To this point, Gerkin was mute. 'Tails can be removed. They can be-'

'Yes, yes,' Vegeta replied, 'I know all about how they can regrow after being lost. I've seen enough imprisoned Saiyans to see that process _first-hand_ ,' he said, smiling. 'You must take my word here, because I am not one to unclothe during a fight; but if you ever took a look at my back, you'd find, well- I have no such spot where a tail even _could_ grow. It is smooth skin, with no scars or blemishes.'

For the first time in their conversation, Gerkin's expression darkened. 'You're lying! You just don't want to accept the truth! You can't-'

A wave of wind hit him, staggering him. It was followed by stronger and longer blasts which rode out from Vegeta like the tides.

'I tire of you,' he said, summoning his _ki_ and whipping it into a purple-tinged storm around him. 'You are not the first Saiyan to try and plague my mind with _doubts_ about what I _know_ to be true. People have mistaken me for a Saiyan all my life- but I am _driven_ to prove that I am _nothing_ like one. I serve Lord Frieza honorably and loyally, as do I serve my team. You are a _renegade_ , nothing better than _scum._ It is about time!-' Vegeta's voice rose, lifting into the air and striking down like lightning, '-that I wipe you from the face of the galaxy!'

Gerkin had expected this. Slaves born in caves could not be convinced to move towards light- they must be forced. His aura exploded away from him, streaking pink and purple onto the ground.

Ground crunched as Vegeta launched from the ground, flying toward Gerkin with one fist cocked back. When he threw it, slammed resoundingly against his guard and threw up a wall of energy into the air above him. Vegeta smirked. He had felt it hit true-

Before Vegeta knew what was happening, he was flipped around into the air above. Gerkin, charging after him, rammed several blows into his back, stunning him, and finished by flying above Vegeta and throwing a double-handed _ki_ -wrapped fist into Vegeta's gut. The blow sent out a fierce shockwave and flung Vegeta down.

He righted himself feet away from the ground and turned his gaze to the sky. 'You're stronger than I gave you credit for!' he shouted up at Gerkin. 'Stronger than the average Saiyan, at least.'

Gerkin did nothing but give him a disapproving look and vanished.

Vegeta's eyes widened as a last-minute sound of air _whooshing_ past his head tipped him off to an incoming attack. He spun and caught an arm at its elbow, a fist at its end, with both hands, bending backward to avoid being hit. Straining, with his gray-and-black hair matting his face, Gerkin pressed against his grip. 'This is for your own good, my Prince!' he yelled, before opening the hand of the arm Vegeta held.

A small _ki_ blast was held in his palm, sparkling and spinning with power. With both arms gripped around the rest of Gerkin's arm, Vegeta was completely defenseless. _I couldn't tell he had gathered any ki! I'm at a massive disadvantage without my scouter!_

As a last-ditch move, he began crouching to the ground to evade the imminent attack. Gerkin anticipated this, and moved forward, forcing the angle of his attack down alongside Vegeta's movement. In the end, Vegeta had just made him an easier target.

The blast launched, and the world closed off to him.

* * *

For a terrible length of time, Gerkin had thought he had killed the son of the man he had failed to protect- which, if true, would have consigned him even deeper into the hellish afterlife that awaited him. After the attack had flown from his hand, the land in front of him was consumed with light and energy. Vegeta's grip on his arm broke, and the last he saw of the Prince was him hurtling backward into a massive conflagration of _ki_. Gerkin stood there on the precipice, as smoke and dust billowed and pulsed out from the blast zone in front of him, for what felt like an eternity.

The dust cleared. The land before him had been scooped away in a cone. With evident concern, he checked his ancient scouter, then his vision, and finally the neck of the Prince. Each one showed that, while weakened and unconscious, Vegeta was still alive. Immeasurable relief flooded him.

 _Not today… not yet… but I must move quickly._ Gerkin used his scouter to check on the other members of the team Vegeta had arrived with. They were far away enough to be of no immediate concern. One day, he and his people would have to do the same to them as they planned to do to the Prince. But Vegeta was the priority, and as the son of a martyred King, he would command immeasurable consensus and unity from the cells scattered across the galaxy. _Perhaps, eventually, he might supplant… a thought for another time._ Addressing his and others' personal grievances was not a priority now, nor would it be one in the future. Now was the time to overthrow Frieza's Empire, and work without distraction towards Saiyan dominance of the galaxy. _Vegeta will be critical, in all of this..._

Gerkin thought on that future, and more importantly, the immediate one. 'It will take time,' he thought aloud, 'especially with so many of my men dead here. Won't be able to do our usual scatter method to get back to the Fringe, but getting back should still be possible.' Gerkin crouched down and gripped Vegeta by his right arm in preparation to lift him onto his back. 'Only thing I need to figure out is how to keep him locked up and quiet during this… It's going to be a while before we finish moving through Empire space.' Gerkin pulled on Vegeta's weight. 'Might have to keep hitting him, actually-'

His would-be captive's eyes flew open. Instantaneously, Vegeta pulled on the same arm Gerkin had tried to lift him with and surged upward. In the same motion, he swung around his other arm; one finger stuck out from its hand.

'DIE!' Vegeta screamed, as a small ball of purple _ki_ left his hand and burrowed into Gerkin's neck. The old royal made a gurgling sound and loosened his grip on Vegeta as the attack dug through his neck and exited out the other side. Crimson blood spurted from both holes and he collapsed forward, trembling, into Vegeta's arms.

As the Saiyan's motion came to a deathly stop, Vegeta watched the man repeatedly try to turn his head to the side look back at him. He never did overcome gravity, however, and he died with his head drooping towards the ground. Vegeta released him from his arms.

'...Fool.'

* * *

The three others arrived piecemeal, each one coming from a different direction. Cagoria, the last one to arrive, strode over to the dead man's body and nudged it with her foot. 'Dead is dead,' she muttered. 'He put up much up a fight?'

'He tried,' Vegeta said, glancing down at the body and back up to Cagoria. She was staring at him. 'In between spouting nonsense, specifically. In the end, though, he let his guard down. Killing him was easy.'

Cagoria arched one of her brows and half her mouth. 'That so? You'll have to regale us at some point.'

'What'd he say?' Kakarot asked from the side. 'The nonsense, that is.'

Vegeta swung towards him. 'Drabble,' he said dismissively. 'Exactly what you'd expect a crazed Saiyan to say.'

'Well, what did he say?'

'I don't _care_ to repeat it,' Vegeta said, irritated. 'And why are you so curious?'

Kakarot flashed a grin. 'I'm amused by the nonsense of lunatics. Hearing you speak it would be doubly entertaining.'

Before Vegeta could snarl back, Cagoria turned her back on Vegeta and the corpse, and assertively walked past Kakarot and Sashe. She didn't spare a glance at either of them. 'The Saiyans are dead. We did what was asked of us,' she replied. 'And that doesn't include asking questions. So, if we're done here- I want to go back to base and take a long shower.' She threw a stern glare at them. 'Sort it out between the three of you who takes the corpse. Or I'll _choose_ for you.'

Kakarot groaned. 'Any reason why we didn't take Broly's pod with us so that none of us would need to share a trip back with a corpse?...'

Cagoria threw a look back at Kakarot. Something glinted in her eyes. 'Not a one.'

She paused at the top of the hill, hesitated, but said nothing, and lifted into the air. The thick air lingering on the planet's surface swallowed her.

Kakarot squinted after her as she flew away. 'She was in a mood.'

' _Shut it_ , Kakarot,' Vegeta snapped, whirling and stomping over to Kakarot. 'I don't care for your wheedling behind her back! If there's something about her you feel the need to _lament_ about, you should damn well tell her and not madden the rest of us with it!'

Off to the side, Sashe glanced over to Vegeta, made a face, and coughed.

Kakarot, smirking, never took his gaze from Vegeta. 'I'm pretty sure I was doing that…' he said. Nonetheless, he took a step back from Vegeta. 'But point taken. In the future, I'll direct my criticism in-person- and on that note, what's got your jumpsuit all tied up in a knot?' Kakarot's smirk broadened. 'Must have been something that _corpse_ said, huh? Poor _Vegeta_. All _riled up_ by a common _thug_.'

The space between them, as little as there was, grew even smaller as Vegeta followed after Kakarot and stepped closer. Kakarot was almost a foot taller than him, but that didn't stop Vegeta from lording over him with as much malice and distaste as he could muster.

'Kakarot,' Sashe spoke up, placing a hand on his shoulder. She had strode over in the past few seconds. 'You should lay off. Seriously.' She looked over to Vegeta. 'If you're intent on fighting… wait until we get back. Not here.' She frowned. 'Cagoria isn't the only one who wants to get back.'

Kakarot scoffed. 'Was never my intent,' he claimed. 'Didn't want to start a fight. Just… having fun.' He waited to see if Vegeta would react. It seemed that the storm had passed, however- the usual reticence and cold composure Vegeta displayed was present again. _Pity._

'Well.' Kakarot spun, and waved at them with the back of his hand as he walked off. 'See you back at base.' Vegeta and Sashe were left alone with the corpse. They noted that Kakarot hadn't offered to take the corpse.

Sashe, arms tucked underneath each other, turned to Vegeta. 'You'll take him?' she asked, spoken more as a confirmation than a request.

Vegeta had moved back over to the corpse. 'I killed him,' he said. 'Might as well guard my credit for that.'

'I don't think anyone would try and take the credit from you.'

'Who knows.'

Sashe stared at Vegeta's back. He continued to stand over the corpse, like a tower looking out over the surrounding land.

'Leave soon,' she said, before moving off and out out of sight.

One of Vegeta's hands crept up to the armor wrapping around his torso. It was black and featureless, smooth to the touch, except for one part. His gloved fingers traced three thin, parallel, and white scored into the upper right section of his armor.

Those marks meant nothing, and that meant everything to Vegeta.

* * *

A/N: Fun fact! There's one paragraph in this chapter that was written 9 months ago! Can you guess what it is?

 **Reviews (many months late, lol):**

 **theAsh0:** If you want to talk about the set-up 9 months on- sure!

 **BlueHorizon48:** I prefer to write with the most ease possible. So I like using apostrophes for quotations (which is how books are formatted in Canada/UK, though I'm not from those two places) because it means I don't have to press shift every time I need to open and close a line of dialogue.

 **Guest:** There have been many more updates of _Strength of Many_ since your review, so I hope you're still getting some joy from my reading!

 **Legendary-AI:** Looooot of what you asked will be addressed with time. This is a RAFO story to unveil what the heck happened in this universe.

 **Spades321:** To answer what I can from your question- two confirmed OCs so far in the form of Cagoria and Sashe.

 **Guest (#2):** Next is here! Enjoy!

 **Ultimate Black Ace:** And a merry thanks to the review that kickstarted my interest in this story again (and made me do some massive planning MOVES). To address your points, in this chapter you got or had hints towards:

-Some people (maybe Saiyans?) interacting with known Saiyans.

-Vegeta's sense of selt and position within the group

-Frieza's relationship with the group

Can't answer any other of the points you mentioned. This is a RAFO story if I've ever made one. But I can say that I've thought a lot on every point you made and a bunch of other stuff I've planned, so rest assured that no stone will stay unturned and unexplained!


	3. Home

Duty

Chapter 3: Home

* * *

 _Age 761, Planet Bja_

* * *

In typical post-mission fashion, Cagoria saw nothing of her team after returning to base. Each wing of the sprawling, black-walled complex, dark as space on the dark side of planet Bja, had its own landing pad. Vegeta's ship veered towards the training wing. Sashe's landed at the dorms. Kakarot's ambled towards the canteen.

Someone had once told her that holding post-mission team meetings would be good for morale. Couldn't remember who it was, though. Probably because she thought morale was fine as it is.

Her ship slowed, lurching around her as the thin atmosphere tried its best to slow it, then came to a full, abrupt stop once its bottom thrusters kicked on. From there, her descent to the operations landing pad was steady and unremarkable. Her ship's hatch swung up and open, and clambering out, Cagoria straightened in sync with the outdoor lights flickering on. Bright light illuminated the steel bridge connecting the pad to the base proper, and without a second's hesitation, she slid across it, shadowed like onyx in her darkened armor and white gloves and boots. Pale-faced techs and engineers, pining for her ship, scurried past her as she walked through the blue atmospheric barrier and felt her eardrums pop.

Once inside, she took a full, deep breath. The air of this planet- dead everywhere except for this base- had been artificially modified to be _somewhat_ breathable in case the base's atmospheric integrity was at any point compromised. Nothing outside quite measured up to the amount of oxygen in the air within, however, and Cagoria continued to breathe greedily as she strode further inside.

Of the five main wings of the base- training, dorms, food and rec, and deliveries being the others- operations typically featured the fewest support personnel roaming the halls from one task to another. Access was restricted except to department heads and the Vanguard's leader, herself. Not everyone needed to know the big-picture goals and details. Hell, even Cagoria sometimes felt like it was a waste of time to do these post-mission reports.

Dodoria usually felt the same way; he sometimes didn't even bother getting her full account and instead relayed along one or two sentences of his own summary. Unfortunately for her, Dodoria was away, which meant that she had to report to _his_ boss directly.

The sliding doors to the small, rounded chamber swept closed behind her as she dropped to one knee, dipped her head, and placed her hand to the floor. She gently prodded her energy and a series of lines, running in loops and shapes away from where her palm was, glowed blue across the floor. The lines weaved along pre-made grooves until, inevitably, each one reached a center dais, spherical and concave. Out of this pit the blue energy rose, waving into the air like spectral blades of grass, until they caught on each other and started coalescing. A voice echoed from the dais's base as a body took shape.

'Report?' Zarbon asked curtly, his projection still studying a tablet in his hands.

Cagoria's head was bowed. 'All Saiyans were killed. After-mission scanning confirmed that not a single ship left Planet Ysa once the operation began.'

'And are none still hiding?'

'The planet was destroyed from orbit before departure, as per protocol.'

'Good.' Zarbon's flickering blue form placed the tablet down out of Cagoria's sight. 'Secondary objective, then: was the target eliminated?'

'He is dead, sir,' Cagoria said crisply, 'though I apologize we were not able to bring back bodies other than his. Local conditions on the ground were poor, sir, and those of his cell that we killed definitively… there wasn't much left of them to take back.'

'It matters not,' Zarbon said. 'That man was a hundred times more valuable than any of his companions… though, that being said, he would have been worth even more alive.'

Cagoria's head incrementally tipped up. 'Did the mission not request that the cell's leader be killed?'

'It did,' Zarbon acknowledged. 'Though within any request, there are… _conditions_ that I or Dodoria might prefer being met. You know the maxim as well as I do. _Lord Frieza gives his word, and his lieutenants interpret it._ If he desires to eliminate the Saiyans from the galaxy, then straightforward, literal murder as implied by that might not always be the best means.'

Cagoria dipped her head. 'Of course. I will keep what you've said in mind going forward.'

'It is a pity he is dead, though.'

'A pity, sir?'

Zarbon glanced at something off-projection- probably his tablet. 'My spies informed me that the Saiyan you killed was involved in the Saiyan regime on Planet Vegeta. As I'm sure you know, we only had a few scattered and untested sources informing us as to what the Saiyans were working towards during that time. Obviously, we have learned since then that some of their efforts were spent organizing their terror cells in anticipation of Lord Frieza's eventual destruction of their planet. But it would be foolish for us to assume that this was the _only_ thing they were working on during that time.'

Cagoria hesitated, thinking. Zarbon had a verbosity that Dodoria did not. Their pink handler was more gruff, to-the-point, and a giver of orders rather than a formulator of them. The few times she had conversed with Zarbon made that clear; he was the real brains behind their operations.

'Any other details to report?' he asked, redirecting her attention to the present.

She belatedly realized that she had forgotten to drag Vegeta here to get his account of the fight- but that was something she could easily submit as a supplemental report later on. No point in dragging this out.

'None, sir- err, except for one thing,' Cagoria caught herself. 'In combat, the Saiyans destroyed our scouters. It seems that word is spreading through their network of our reliance on them in fights.'

'Is that so?' Zarbon's eyes flashed. 'That is unfortunate. I was hoping the bombing on Planet Yaras was an anomaly.' He paused. 'Your team will have to do more training without them, then. We can't afford to carry such an obvious disadvantage into combat.'

'Understood.'

'Anything else?'

'Nothing else, sir.'

Zarbon's projection shimmered. 'Contact me immediately if that changes. Zarbon out.'

* * *

Vegeta had disrobed, showered, dressed himself, undressed, showered again, dried himself in the cold air outside, and still, he felt unclean as he settled into his corner of the sparring floor, weights piled onto his head and back, arms held out to either side, and squatted. Everything of their mission to planet Ysa had left him filthy, not least the corpse he had shared a pod with on the ride back to base. From personal experience he knew the sour smell of death would follow him around for the next few days.

 _The only thing of consequence that Saiyan ever did._ Even as Vegeta's legs pumped up and down on a gym mat, in some distant part of the base a body was being sterilized and quartered for research purposes. All sentient species within the PTO were subject to Regulation 29: any race that was found to have captured Emperor Frieza's interest was to be captured, killed, and researched in large enough quantities to his satisfaction. The Emperor could be aloof about his intentions, but his long-time lieutenants had long made it clear what compelled this: Frieza recognized strength in aliens he did not know or understand as threat, and tasked his people to study whoever caught his eye until they could be understood.

As the oldest among his five-person team, Vegeta had the most confidence in saying that the Saiyans have been in Frieza's crosshairs for most, if not all of his life in this regard. And he was sure this would remain so until he died… or until there were no Saiyans left.

It was no secret that Frieza's hatred for the Saiyans sometimes defied civility. The Emperor of all civilized space was known to quite literally explode when informed that some planet or base had been destroyed by his loathed enemies. For that reason Vegeta was happy that he never had to do mission debriefs with Cagoria. Very rarely would Frieza be present, but for those that he was, he usually screamed.

Better to leave him to his empire and Vegeta to his gym. The muscles in his biceps bulged as he pumped the slanted machine in front of him, arms straining against incredibly heavy weights tied to a cord inching upward. Metal pricked his skin, tasted as much in his mouth, but even as Vegeta spat out a blob of bloody phlegm to his left, the machine groaned as he called on an ounce of energy and yanked the weights upward- just easily enough that they didn't bust through the machine's top altogether. From there, Vegeta calmed his power, and with a grunt, let go, allowing the machine to bend back and the weights to clunk to the floor.

Vegeta studied his hands as he labored to turn them over. Calluses, cuts, and scars crisscrossed his skin like knicks in an old jumpsuit, so numerous that they all blended together in some spots. At the tips of his fingers- where the most skin was ringey, white, and thick- droplets of blood welled, balancing between the rinds of his fingerprints like drops of water clinging to a crack. With a flick, he cleared his hands of stray blood, and slammed them together, rubbing his finger-joints.

A grin came over his face. There was one last machine in here for him to conquer for the day- his absolute _favorite_ one. In the center of the gym- which in reality was segmented into rooms large and small, round and square, some pools, a sparring ring, and a whole infirmary closest to the rest of the base- there was a round and concave disk as wide as ten people lying flat on their backs. Lacking any better term he had coined it the Scythe, as it could only do one thing. When lifted by its edge, the disk would rise into the air and start rotating. At the same time, the perimeter of the ring would detach from the rest of it, forming a continually moving shell that trapped whoever was standing in the middle by a blur of white. Then the _real_ fun would begin as strips of the floor would detach and fly through the middle, sharpened, jagged edges leading, cutting through whatever it touched. Standing in the center, thus, was the ultimate test of reflex, agility, positioning- and confidence. Vegeta was proud to say that he'd received more injuries from using the Scythe than the rest of the team combined.

Sometimes his blood ran a little too hot after missions and fighting for his life within the whirling blades would be the thing to calm him down. The rest of his workout up until this point- which weakened his legs and arms to the point where they trembled from any exertion- was to give the machine a fair chance. So Vegeta would gladly do this to get Kakarot out of his mind.

 _That imp has become even more annoying on missions of late, if that's even possible._ Cagoria should have recognized what Kakarot is a long time ago- a troublemaker at best, and a fatal weakness in the chain at worst. There was no doubt in Vegeta's mind that Kakarot would cause the death of one of them soon. If he didn't kill him with his bare hands first, of course.

His mind settled into a blissful silence as he stopped at the disk's edge, eyes tracing the thin line separating it from the rest of the floor. Some technician long ago had told him that they had installed this thing by mistake; they would have never put in such a dangerous and, in his words, "malfunctioning machine" for use in an elite gym. But as soon as Vegeta forbid them from removing or even fixing it, their tone changed and they reconfigured the main chamber to be centered around the disk. Ample space was provided around him so as to make the Scythe the central attraction.

That was a simpler time when he was not too young to not be heard but not too old to bow to the demands of his four other team members. _It was not like now_ , Vegeta reflected as his foot reached forward. _When I am forced to suffer fools._

'Were you thinking of getting inside that thing, Vegeta?'

The question halted Vegeta halfway to the disk's center. With some reluctance, he backtracked and turned. 'I was strongly considering it before you came here.'

Cagoria frowned at a single splotch of dried blood at the disk's center. 'It's a deathtrap. Kakarot nearly lost an arm when you pushed him into it.'

'He pushed himself into it by being so aggravating, and he would not have been so aggravating if were he not so weak.'

'I'm not sure "Kakarot's weakness engineered his death" would hold up against Zarbon's scolding.'

Cagoria was the only person on the team who could get a rare smile from him- and even then, only for a split-second, and only when they were alone. He wished she would disparage Kakarot more when he was around.

'Are you here for something?'

'Filling you in,' Cagoria said, drawing back a momentary smirk. 'I finished my chat with Zarbon- before you ask, Dodoria is still in transit back to base. So, with my report given, there's only one more loose end to tie up.'

Vegeta made sure to hold her gaze. 'The corpse's words?'

'If you'd be so kind.'

After gesturing to Cagoria to sit on a nearby bench, Vegeta sat on the opposite end of it, arms folded against his abdomen. 'He didn't say much- nothing _new_ at least. He parrotted the same lies as all the other Saiyans I've killed. That they knew me.'

'They always say that,' Cagoria muttered, pressing her back to the metal wall. 'No matter how close you beat them to death. Like they're a bunch of broken dials, stuck to the same response as they die. _"I know you. I've seen you._ "' She grunted through her nose, stacked her arms, and closed her eyes. 'Heard it a hundred times.'

'Yeah.' Vegeta's arms began to rub against his abdomen back-and-forth like they were cold. 'This one- Gerkin- he added to the lie.'

'Oh?' Cagoria peaked at him with one eye. 'Do tell.'

'He said that I was a _Prince_.' Vegeta turned his head to her, wearing a wry smile. 'Funny, isn't it?'

Cagoria's brows pinched and sat straight. 'Funny how?'

'I am the Second of the Vanguard. I am _your_ second. In a way, I am your Prince.'

Vegeta immediately recognized the strangeness of his statement in how Cagoria's head flinched back-and-forward. 'I mean- I'm the Prince to your Queen,' he corrected, 'as I would never imply that I had any sort of authority over you, or-'

'Please stop,' Cagoria held out a hand, her face offended by some absent odor. 'Just stop.'

He frowned, his face reddened, and he looked at the ground, skin sucking into his cheeks.

Cagoria stood, holding her hands against her hips as if Vegeta was some child that had to be scolded. 'You made it weird. I asked you a simple question, and couldn't give a non-weird answer. This is why we shouldn't talk outside spars.' She stared at him for a moment, looking like she almost expected an apology, but groaned instead and shook her head. ' _Ugh._ Alright.' Cagoria started walking off. 'Go back to training,' she called back.

Vegeta _always_ had to make things _awkward_ , didn't he?

* * *

He had made sure to discreet- as per her wishes. After landing, he spent a good half-hour in the canteen, getting his fill of braised meat and starch, until Cagoria entered the room and sat down at the metal table adjacent to his.

Kakarot burped, folded his hands on his belly, and cracked a wide grin. 'So,' he said into the air, eyes examining the ceiling, 'how'd it go?'

'How'd what go?' Cagoria blew on a spoonful of stew.

'The talk with Primhair.'

Cagoria stopped blowing. 'Last time I checked, I chat mission details with Vegeta.'

'You don't know? He gave his position to me. You're talking with the brand new Second of the Vanguard.'

She snorted hard enough to spill the stew in her spoon back into the bowl. 'I think Vegeta would toss himself into a star before he did that.'

'And who's to say he already hasn't?'

Cagoria laughed. She couldn't help herself. That was usually a problem around Kakarot. Lucky for her, she wasn't on a mission.

Without another word, Cagoria stood with her bowl, turned, and headed towards the dorms. Kakarot waited for a few heartbeats, and then perhaps a little too eagerly, he rose and followed.

* * *

Sashe's footsteps echoed faintly against the metal floor as she strode across the base. Wide and empty corridors opened up in front of her, walls yearning like open arms. A glistening shine was present over all things: paneling and ceilings and light fixtures and wires were all cleaned and polished, perfect and prim. The only thing missing was the people who made it that way.

When she was younger she wondered why she felt so lonely after missions. The team always separated, moving into their own little spaces across the base. That was nothing new. If anything, they talked less on missions. No: what she didn't realize then was the fear they commanded among the staff who maintained this base. She wasn't sure how their deeds had filtered to the regulars, but there was a clear correlation between the time after missions and the total lack of people moving through the hallways. They were afraid of them. They _avoided_ them. Which would have been laughable considering the lack of places to hide if it wasn't so sad. Somewhere, technicians were flooding into a service shaft, all cramming to get a look at the same gnawed wire, just to avoid being seen.

Perhaps she would try and have another talk with Broly when he returned. If not for anyone else's sake but her own.

The lights dimmed behind her as the door into her quarters slowly side open, metal bottom catching on something in the track. She scowled as she bent down and set her meal down, a bowl of chunky mud-brown stew, and wiped her finger across the threshold. Not a single smudge of black came back on her gloved finger. It needed to be oiled. When she eventually spotted a technician, she'd inform them of it.

In her room was all she had: a plastic cot, a polished metal table, a series of wall hooks for her armor, and a personal device, glassy and thin, sprawled across one of the table's corners. Sashe let the door hiss closed behind her and scanned her tablet after picking it up and placed it back down neatly. Her bowl of stew was set in the table's center, a spoon's handle sliding against the rim.

She was hungry, but instead she folded her hands above her food and rested her head on them. Just as she knew what the unseen were doing in this base while she ate another meal in her quarters, alone, she knew what the seen were doing, as well. She had to know by now, considering how many times the four of them had in totality rejected her offer to sit a meal together. Vegeta was hogging the gym. Cagoria was probably taking a nap. Broly was, as usual, not here at all, and Kakarot-

'Ugh,' she groaned at the wall. 'Damn. I forgot.' Her frown didn't part as she lifted the bowl and gulped down her thickened brown stew in one go and set the dish back down. She beat her chest, burped, shook her head, and rose, leaving her quarters. The sliding door nearly caught on her left boot.

* * *

Kakarot was voracious by the time he slunk out of Cagoria's quarters. The hallways near her room were often sparse, untrodden, and as such he had no problem gliding unseen towards the commissary. It was a mistake to not eat more beforehand while he was waiting. His stomach had growled again and again. Cagoria even noticed and teased him for it.

It was odd to feel both affection and spite at a little thing like that. She had barely spent a breath wiring her eyes into something fun at his expense before it had passed. Too long to not be seared into his brain, he supposed. He could picture Cagoria as her face lifted with some high-minded mockery. He saw her rare, radiant smile as he grabbed a filled bowl and sat down at a mess table. She was swimming in lapping waves of brown, chunks of meat floating through her visage.

In his stew, somehow. Kakarot blinked a few times and saw nothing. Then a spoon plopped into it.

'You okay now?' Sashe was standing over him and the table, her arms crossed, meaning she had dropped the spoon at a weird angle or had assumed that pose as soon as the utensil started falling through the air.

He blinked at her a few times, too. 'Hmm? I'm fine.'

Sashe sat down opposite him, arms still stacked. 'I'm not so sure. You forgot to grab a spoon.'

He had forgotten to get a spoon. He fished out the one given to him and plopped some stew into his mouth. 'I guess I'm fine with being distracted, is all.'

'Uh-huh.' Sashe stared at him as he ate. It was also hard to notice that she had come in full armor. He was in his jumpsuit. 'Distracted by what, exactly?'

' _wh-what boozness-'_ he swallowed, '-is that of yours?'

'Why do you goad him?'

Kakarot's spoon plunged into his stew again. 'Goad who?'

'You know who. What do you have against Vegeta?'

He swallowed again, and shoved the bowl to his left, clearing the table between them. 'Isn't it obvious? I hate his guts.'

'It _is_ obvious.' Sashe's gaze narrowed. ' _Too_ obvious.'

Kakarot smirked and crossed his arms in imitation near enough to Sashe's to be mockery. 'I'll admit that I enjoy making him hate my guts, too. That satisfy you?'

'No.'

His pose shifted slightly. He cocked his head. 'Really?'

Sashe fixed an incredibly stern expression on him. Her short-cut hair silhouetted her face, magnifying everything between folded pleats of dull black. 'You eat, sleep, and breath pushing Vegeta's buttons. A normal person would, at most, breathe that. But you've turned it into a full-time job.'

'Oh?' Kakarot gently smiled, nudging a few clumps of hair out of their staked angles in the air across his face. 'What if I told you I'm a mean person, and the _only_ reason I tolerate any of this life is because I can get Vegeta flustered on command? That is my _greatest_ joy here, and while there are some other things I tend to like around here, a lot of it I don't.' He made an exaggerated gesture with his hand towards her, eyes rolling and smirk widening. 'For example.'

She continued to study him unperturbed, unreactive to the point of reacting to something entirely different from his concluding point. Finally Sashe leaned back, sighing. 'You're impossible. I don't see what Cagoria sees in you.'

'She sees my winning personality and likes someone who can make her laugh.' Again, he gestured to her. 'See exhibit A, and exhibit B in the gym and exhibit C wherever they are. You are the dourest people I've ever met- which isn't saying much, admittedly.'

'I pity Vegeta.'

'Someone has to.'

'And I pity you.'

' _Someone_ has to.'

'Stop goading him. Seriously. He doesn't deserve it.'

'He deserves what I say he deserves. And he deserves to be goaded.'

Before Sashe could speak again, Kakarot abruptly raised a hand. 'And, now, I will put my words into my mouth.'

'What?'

A clang of a bowl followed by a sound of stew pouring came from somewhere behind Sashe. Twisting around, she saw Vegeta, freshly washed, fresh white linens fit around his body, standing… scowling towards them. Of _course_ he'd come at the worst possible time. He _always_ came at the worst possible time.

She twisted back, glaring. 'Kakarot, I literally spent the last five minutes telling you not to do what you're about to do. You pushed him too far during the last mission. Give him time to cool off, at least. You're going to fuck up a huge chunk of this base and whatever weird respect Cagoria has for you if you rope Vegeta into a fight.'

'And I'm gonna do it anyway.' Kakarot said, eyes closing with confidence, his smile carrying through the air as he stood and stepped away from the table. 'Way of Kakarot, Sashe. Outside of Cagoria's purview, I do what I want, when I want, and after this _fun_ conversation... Hey, Geets!'

* * *

A visible flinch went through Vegeta, body tensing as if he'd heard a pod crashland through a canyon. ' _Kakarot_.'

' _Vegeta!'_ His loathed, baseless, _insufferable_ fool waltzed across the mess, brushing past tables and benches. 'And here I thought you'd have eaten by now. Lucky me!'

' _Urgh.'_ Vegeta grunted as he turned towards a table to his left, but Kakarot stepped that way, too. ' _Urgh…_ Nothing lucky about this.'

'Sure there is!' Kakarot wrapped his hands around his upper arms. 'Because, as you _know_ , usually you spend so much time laboring away in the gym- hogging it really- that we never get to _chat_.'

Vegeta's gaze moved rightward: Kakarot stepped in that direction. 'There's a reason for that,' he said dryly. 'Do you have anything to say, Kakarot, or are you going to keep breathing on me?'

Kakarot's mouth turned more jagged, sharper. 'I have something to ask, actually. That mission we went on? The one you rode back from with a corpse? Not that you'd forget, because of your _smell_ -' He pulled back, judging by Vegeta's flickering features that he was going too fast, too quickly. '-But I'm curious; what did that ingrate whisper in your ear?'

'What?' Vegeta barked, head incrementally inching away. 'What nonsense are you going on about now, Kakarot?'

'Oh, _come now_.' Kakarot placed his hands on his hips and leaned his torso forward. His face came within a foot of Vegeta's. 'You're the one who killed him, right? You rode him from life to death to however many pieces he's in now. So I'm sure you've had time to mull over what he said to you while his corpse was pressing against your seat. What'd he say?'

At last, Vegeta put his plate and bowl of stew down, clearing the space between them- and their fists. 'And what makes you think he told me anything at all?'

'You tell me… _Prince._ '

It happened quicker than Sashe could guess. Vegeta's leg slid forward, left arm parallel, and with a well-anchored _yoink_ , Kakarot was collared forward and placed into a headlock. ' _What did you say, runt!?'_ Vegeta shouted into his face.

'That is your title, isn't it?'

' _You're speaking like a traitor!'_ A lash of dark blue erupted into the air around Vegeta, sweeping his tray-and-bowl of his food off of a nearby table. ' _You're speaking like the enemy! Like a_ _ **Saiyan!**_ _'_

Kakarot hadn't lost an ounce of his composure. Even in Vegeta's grip, his materializing light blue aura was as calm and collected as his carefully measured haughtiness. 'And your thin-skinned anger speaks _volumes_. But what _exactly_ did that guy say, anyway?'

' _Why would I tell you, clown!?'_

'Because I addressed you all _proper._ '

' _That's it!'_ Vegeta's arms bulged, muscles wrapping around Kakarot's neck. ' _I don't know who ran their mouth, but this time, you're going to get what's coming to you! I'm going to pound you into dust, Kakarot!'_

'Vegeta!' Sashe ran forward. 'Not here-'

' _Yes, here! If I let this one's disrespect stand for one more second!...'_

'You know…' Kakarot said in a sing-songy voice… even as his aura whipped into a frenzy. 'I always wondered what it'd be like as second-in-command to Cagoria…'

 _'You'll be second-in-command to my-'_

 _ **'ENOUGH**_ _!'_ A roaring voice flooded across the room. _'BOTH OF YOU!'_

Vegeta and Kakarot's heads both shot past Sashe, past the tables, to the mess's main entrance. In the doorway Cagoria panted, hastily and clumsily dressed in her black jumpsuit, but no less intimidating for it. 'Don't finish that sentence, Vegeta. Not a single _inch_ of either of you will be hit,' she hissed.

'He started it!' Vegeta groused. 'I came here to eat my meal in peace!'

' _Oh, as if anywhere you'd go would be peaceful-'_

' _Shut up!'_ Cagoria's voice shook them into silence and their auras into nothing. 'I'm officially making today a _no bullshit_ day. I just got word a few minutes ago that Dodoria's on his way here.'

'Now?' Kakarot's question loosened Vegeta's headlock and gave him the chance to wrench out of his grip. 'Wasn't that supposed to be- be a few weeks?'

'Yes!'

Vegeta bit his cheeks. 'That's bad, isn't it?'

'Considering he's accompanying Broly, _yes!_ '

They froze- Vegeta and Kakarot and even Sashe. Cagoria's gaze took an interest in a plain wall behind them.

'His mission wasn't supposed to finish for another month.' Sashe closed his eyes, sighing. 'I see.'

'Broly... had an accident,' Cagoria admitted, sensing Sashe had stumbled upon what she had hoped to avoid revealing. 'So he's coming back to heal.'

'Accident means what?' Kakarot asked.

'He's injured.' Cagoria opened her mouth, but closed it, pressing her attention to the floor. 'We'll know more soon. I want all of you to eat, get dressed in full armor, and report to the main landing pad.'

The floor sounded hollow as she turned their back to them. 'And…' She walked off. 'That's it.' And the door behind her echoed dull and low once closed.

* * *

 **Reviews:**

 **TienFan99:** More interactions between Vegeta and Kakarot here! And thank you for the spelling check!

 **MrSquaad:** This will probably be darker and grittier than SoM. As for what's going on with them thinking they're not Saiyans… you'll see. Thank you for the review! It definitely isn't dead in the water! I just like to take my time with this compared to SoM!


	4. The Crime

Duty

Chapter 4: The Crime

* * *

The day was growing dark by the time the planet's first sun had set. He walked a dusty footpath under the waxing, pitiful light of a red dwarf, the sky's sole sad guardian while its brighter, larger brother began its rest. Soon there would barely be enough light to find his way outside. This world would plunge into near darkness, just tinged with red, and the temperature would plummet cold enough to kill.

Bardock growled as he grabbed the straps of his armor and tightened them, fixing his pauldrons in place. There was already a chill.

He climbed a well-trodden hill and slid down its slope into a small bowl in the surrounding rock. Wind whistled and fluttered through his hair. 'You here?' he called.

Movement to his right. 'He was getting impatient,' a sturdy voice said.

She stepped out alongside a rolling wind. Ceripa's armor was in even worse shape than his. A fight? He couldn't be sure. It had been a few months since they've last gathered. But perhaps she just plain looked like shit. Her frazzy black hair could have been last cut by a bent saw.

Bardock grunted. 'The others are nearby?' He crossed to his left and sat on a boulder.

Ceripa moved so that she faced him from the other side of the bowl. Her right hand, flattened, stretched at her side. 'They are.'

'Then bring him out.'

With a nod she craned her head. 'You heard him.'

Subtle noise, the sound of armor brushing against fabric and boots skimming across dusty earth, flowed into the bowl before two came into view. Two Saiyans, one standing tall- the other kicked forward. Ceripa accepted the crawling man, yanked him up by his ragged dirt-smeared shirt, and pulled him in front of her- facing Bardock.

'So? You're the man?'

Thin black hair fell across his face, mixing with grease, mixing with blood. He had been beaten. Considering his crimes, Bardock hadn't expected any different.

'Screw you.' The traitor refused to meet his gaze.

'That's it?' With a slow exhale Bardock sat forward and linked his hands in his laps. 'This is your one chance to explain why you sold out your cell.' He searched the man's posture. 'They were friends of mine- as much as anyone can be friends under these conditions.'

The traitor coughed. Fine white mist spilled out of him like blood. 'Would anything I say save my life?'

Hesitation; Bardock noted the creeping gray in Ceripa's eyes and the growing chill in the air. 'No.'

'Then I have nothing to say to you. I made my choice.' In acceptance the traitor stretched his neck forward, exposing his neck. 'Time to die with it.'

'Fine.' Bardock sighed as he pushed off his knees and stood. 'Then it is with great reluctance I pronounce you dead under the old laws. You end as you lived.' Habitual force filled his words. 'You will not die a Saiyan.'

A twinge shook the black veil around the traitor's head. 'Just so you know- they wanted to die,' he said quickly. Hair swung and Bardock saw his eyes, black and dull like a worn opal, hollow like a fading memory. 'This isn't a life worth living. So I sped things along. For them.'

Even in his last moments he could not summon the fire of life. Everything Bardock saw was burnt out from within and passing ashes.

Ceripa found his gaze, somehow.

'Do it.'

* * *

'What can we do?'

The sounds of camp- the chatter of old friends reuniting and cookware being clinked- had lulled him to an old memory. He was with his wife, Gine, sitting amid the wilds with a bowl of smoked meat between them and a boundless forest stretching to the horizon. It was before everything- before the kids, before the PTO, and before the end of it all. The moment was- had been perfect. The companionable silence as they gorged on plump haunches and watched the planet live.

But like everything now, a faint aura of pain circled it. Perfect memory eluded him.

He closed his eyes to clear the image from his mind. 'Meaning?'

'What can we do to keep this going?'

Ceripa finally grew impatient with his slow-moving act and punched him on the arm. 'Hey!' Bardock shouted, eyes flying open.

'Listen, will you?' She swept an arm over the rest of the camp. The glow of fire lingered on everything amidst the farther-off darkness. 'Is there any way we can prolong this?'

The sounds of camp sung; sometimes Bardock thought there was a duality to suffering and joy. That great suffering led to great joy. Or perhaps great joy led to great suffering. Some version of that.

'Look at them,' she urged. Among the twenty-odd gathered in the red gloom, lit by the red dwarf in the sky and the person-high bonfires warding off the cold, two ratty-looking brothers were taking turns belching at each other. Near them two women, oddly enough, were doing the same, though from the look of things they were too familiar to be sisters.

' _Bardock_.' Ceripa's voice drew his gaze back to her. 'These types of days are so rare.' She frowned- a pinching, thin-lipped, almost pained expression that somehow imparted a little warmth to Bardock's heart. Her hand rested comfortably atop his. 'I miss you a lot when we're not together.'

For a long time Bardock had kept her at arm's reach from fear that Gine would appear just as his hand was moving towards hers. But time revealed certain truths. One such that the mother of his two kids only lived on in the faint reaches of his mind. And he had stopped listening to those whispers a long time ago.

He felt her pulse at her wrist. This was the hand that had killed the traitor. But it was calm, cool. 'It's not up to me.'

'You executed that man. How can you say you don't have any power?'

'Because I was the nearest person available.' Bardock stretched his fingers under her hand. 'You know just as well as I do that I'm responsible to the elders and their ways.'

'Then figure out a way to prolong this.' Ceripa pulled his hand to her heart. 'For us, at least.'

He gave a rueful little shake of his head. 'You're not satisfied with this?'

She picked at the few gray hairs sticking from his left temple. 'Nope.'

 _'_ Well...alright.' Bardock drew a breath. 'Maybe I can think of a reason.'

Focus crossed her face. 'Yeah?'

'Can you keep a secret?'

'Go on.'

Across seconds Bardock seemed to de-age decades; wrinkles thinning and gray hair darkening, as his head bent into the red glow of the bonfires and he flashed it: that mischievous smile of his. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen it. 'I've received a message from a very old friend. He's on the cusp of something great. And he needs two helpers to make sure it happens.'

* * *

'Don't say anything, don't do anything, don't so much as _twitch_ while he's here. Just stand there and move when prodded.'

The air was hazy and muted green in the early day, wind ambling and exposed rock shining for all the world to see. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder at Landing Pad A, Cagoria and Sashe continued to eye the gray-blue sky, waiting for Dodoria's arrival. It would not be pleasant and she felt it necessary to remind Sashe of that.

'He was _pissed_ when we called me.' Cagoria spat over her left shoulder. 'Training-level angry. So don't do _anything_.'

'Like a sponge?' Sashe asked.

'Like that, yes.' Her braided hair kept fidgeting against her neck. Or was she moving her head? She didn't know. 'Be that, and we'll be okay.'

'Sure.'

Sashe half-expected Cagoria to traipse across the platform, patrol its length or peer over railings as if there was anything to be seen in a bleary canyon down below. But her commander remained at her side, rigid… anxious? Did she want to talk? That was _extremely_ unusual.

She'd take the chance. 'So what's going on?'

Cagoria angled her head in her direction. 'In reference to what?'

'Why Dodoria is coming here.' Sashe pointedly avoided Cagoria's gaze and continued to look forward. She might feel more comfortable if it seemed Sashe really wasn't speaking to her. 'What happened to Broly, too.'

'I've said enough already.'

'Without saying anything at all.'

On the periphery of Sashe's vision Cagoria made a tensed, searching expression at the sky. 'It's not my place, yet.'

'Yet?'

'Shut it. He's coming.'

And so he was: Sashe watched a pod wreathed in flaming atmosphere hurdle through the sky. Blue impulse built under it before the ship started to slow and angle gently in their direction.

Cagoria made a point of smoothing out her black armor and stone-gray cape as the wind battered against them and the landing pad shifted under their feet. But for her effort she looked impeccable in Sashe's eyes. Regardless of any doubt _anyone_ had ever had for Cagoria's worthiness to lead, she had always looked and carried herself for the part.

That same presence manifested clear-as-day as the pod's door hissed and levered open. Pink hands gripped the pod's rim before a hulking, brawny, and round pink alien stood under the planet's sun. Spikes and plating covered him head-to-toe- natural armor- and fit awkwardly against the PTO officer's armor straining to circumvent him.

Ah, but he was powerful and in uniform. That was all that mattered.

Cagoria latched her hands behind her back. 'Commander Dodoria,' she said, half-bowing. 'As per your instructions I've met you here and dispatched the rest of my team to help do intake with Broly.'

Through slitted eyes- eyes utterly unconcerned with what Cagoria was saying- Dodoria stared at the base behind them and the wider rocky landscape of this world. 'This place is still a shithole.'

'Sir?'

'Come on,' Dodoria growled as he suddenly stomped past, armored protrusions nearly brushing against them. 'I want you to make the rounds. And get rid of your _friend_ , too.'

Sashe watched the frown beginning to form on Cagoria's face. She absolved her of any command and took a pointed step to the landing pad's side. When Cagoria looked at her, she gave a quick, accommodating nod, and that seemed to be all the confirmation she needed before setting off after Dodoria.

Technicians she hadn't seen in days eventually filtered in to care for Dodoria's pod and Sashe felt the wind once more return to peace.

* * *

A loud _braaang_ sounded on the metal platform like a drum being struck, thrumming into the air and making the ground rattle. Kakarot leaned forward and sighed into the pod. 'How many times are you going to drop this thing, Vegeta?'

'As many times as necessary!' Vegeta shouted back as he rubbed his hands together and cracked his knuckles. 'It's a sphere, after all- it should be difficult to carry!' He bent down and stretched his palms against the ship. 'Now stop slouching and help me!'

Kakarot rolled his eyes as he followed Vegeta's prodding and hefted the pod off the ground again. The thing wasn't that heavy but neither of them wanted to let the other carry the thing by themself. Which didn't mean that Kakarot particularly cared about whether Vegeta proved his _machismo_ or whatever by carrying it without his help. Moreso he knew the most annoying scenario for Vegeta involved him and Kakarot working together to move it. Throw in Vegeta's sore muscles from exercising earlier in the day, and he was being treated to a near-constant series of mutterings and curses as they slowly moved the pod across the landing pad. Vegeta would complain near constantly about not having the right grip.

It was easy for Kakarot to forget- when he was in the thick of getting under his skin, usually- how much space he occupied in Vegeta's head. If this was anyone else helping him, he probably wouldn't have made it a near constant performance of his strength and prowess.

Just another example of how much of a fool Vegeta was. Why appear strong when you could just _be_ strong?

The pod once again slapped down onto metal. Unlike before, it drummed onto the platform and produced a hollow note in accord with it being empty. 'There,' Vegeta grunted. 'It's been moved. Now we can waste our time doing nothing.' He shot a look even as he crossed his arms and turned away. 'I'm sure you're _thrilled_ , Kakarot.'

'I'll never understand your bit of thinking I'm lazy.'

'I think you're lazy because you _are_ lazy!' Vegeta shouted over his shoulder. 'How else would you describe your behavior when you disappear from briefings and stuff yourself silly in the mess hall? You're a glutton!'

There was a time- _very_ long ago- when Vegeta's prattling would have triggered some hesitation, even fear, in Kakarot's tread through life. But he had been taller than Vegeta for several years now and wise to how he barked when he should have bit. For all his groaning about Kakarot over the years, Vegeta had never had the courage to strike him when he was truly incensed. He could not _be_ strong- only appear so.

So Kakarot sighed, and with a thin grin crossed to the other end of the landing pad and leaned his back on the railing. 'So how long do we wait?'

'How should I know?' Vegeta grumbled. 'Cagoria didn't give any instruction beyond clearing the landing pad.'

'Does that bother you?'

Vegeta tilted his head stubbornly into the air. 'If it does, you would never know it.'

 _Dear Frieza, he believes his own spiel, doesn't he?_ Kakarot closed his eyes with an easy smile and shook his head. 'Sure.'

'I hate you.'

Furtively Kakarot opened one eye. 'What was that?'

Vegeta continued to face away from him. 'I hate you and I want you to know that,' he elaborated.

'I already knew that.'

'Then I wanted to remind you of that.' Vegeta must have been at least halfway across the platform from him. He wasn't even looking his way. If he was trying to intimidate or threaten him, his heart clearly wasn't in it.

 _Such a sad troll._ There were times that Kakarot felt pity for him, but those moments were rare and liable to be overpowered by the hilarity of watching a grown man flounder about in doing the most basic tasks. Kakarot still replayed the shower incident in his head from time to time. Seeing him drenched in water and oil, trying to squeeze past his pride to ask for just a smidgen of mechanical help-

'I wish I didn't hate you.'

'Hmm?' Kakarot emerged from his reverie and eyed Vegeta. 'Really?'

Vegeta turned to him, face stern as solid rock. 'I wish you didn't do so many things that I despise. I wish you were more _proper_. It is draining to have to live with you as you are now.'

'That so?' Legs crossed as Kakarot adjusted his body against the railing. 'So you're saying that if I stopped doing all the things you hate, what would happen?'

'I would tolerate you.'

'Hah!' Kakarot laughed. 'You would?'

Vegeta held his gaze for a moment. Black eyes regarded him before he turned away once more. 'Maybe not.'

'Thought so.'

They passed the remainder of their idle time in silence, each one taking up one half of the landing platform. Kakarot watched Vegeta stand stoic for a time before growing tired of his act and searching the clear skies instead. Eventually a reddish dot appeared, streaked with orange and yellow, hurtling towards them. Both moved closer to the base as the pod landed with some difficulty. Owing to its mottled, damaged appearance and the faltering blue impulse exhaust lining its bottom, it bounced hard against the landing pad and triggered the automatic momentum fields to prevent it from causing any major damage. The entire ship was halted, then released alongside a great wind dispelling its excess force.

Vegeta and Kakarot both advanced with arms shielding their eyes. The pod looked even worse up close- like someone had chopped and fried it for a half-eaten meal. The hatch door even appeared to be melted shut from the outside.

A long whistle. 'Talk about battle damage,' Kakarot commented.

'Uh-huh.' Vegeta tried to access the external control pad, but the display kept friscalating and shifting like an out-of-focus camera. 'Outer display is busted.'

'Shame.' Kakarot kicked the pod.

'Why the hell did you do that?'

Kakarot kicked the pod again. 'How else are we going to get it open?'

'With _tools_ , idiot,' Vegeta snarled at him. 'The engineers have a special procedure for opening critically damaged pods, because if you don't-'

Kakarot kicked the pod a third time. Vegeta made it so easy. 'Don't care.'

' _Kakarot!-_ '

But before Vegeta could finish his growling sentence the pod door hitched forward, snapping through the fused edges, and let out a fine cloud of mist. By habit Vegeta and Kakarot held their breath and stepped back from the sleep-inducing aerosol. Coincidentally this gave ample space for the pod's occupant to fall face-first onto the metal platform.

Face-first, splattering blood. The half of what they could see of Broly was mangled, gutted, twisted like some old rag, marked with discolorations and stains. A battle? Grievous injuries. Nothing they've never seen before. But it stuck, for some reason. That image. Near-death.

'Well…' Vegeta strode forward and roped one of Broly's arms around his shoulder. 'Help me, Kakarot.'

Without comment he did.

* * *

The base's halls were empty as Cagoria followed Dodoria lock-step. She had a good idea of what he was doing and why she was following, but as always with him, she didn't know the reason why. All she knew was that she was acting the good child as he wished.

'No mistests at all?' Dodoria's beady eyes roamed up and down the assembled line of pale-faced, locked-joint technicians.

'O-oh yes,' the lead flight technician, a shorter and oblong blue alien with a wide head, muttered. To his credit, he was sweating less than his people lined up beside him. 'No discrepancies at all. And that was after the second round of tests!'

'Uh huh.' Dodoria seemed less interested in speaking-face-to-face with the department head than with intimidating the grunts. His face kept moving between them, inducing fidgeting and squirming.

'You can check our logs, if you so desire, of course,' the lead technician added in an unsteady voice. 'Everything is-'

Dodoria cut him off with a subtle shift of his shoulders; like he was getting ready to smash something. 'Not interested.' He might have been angry, but then again, he always looked angry to Cagoria. 'Keep it handy, though.'

'T-that is all?'

Before the question had even finished Dodoria was walking off. 'Uh-huh.'

That was the third department head, flight coming after fueling and on-board medical, that had been questioned by Dodoria so far. Cagoria was reminded of how little of the base the techs had to themselves; space not used by the Vanguard for sleeping, eating, training or otherwise. She and Dodoria walked down narrow corridors not visited by someone with a power level over 50 since- well, she didn't know. Maybe Kakarot. He liked to wander, right?

But that was an insignificant concern right now. When she and Dodoria halted at a corner so that he could determine where the stasis department head was, Cagoria continued forward and faced him. 'I would like to know exactly what's going on.' She paused for effect. 'Considering that I need to keep up my authority over my team.'

Dodoria grunted and without so much as looking at her started walking again.

It was a well-trodden conversation between herself and the two direct superiors of the Vanguard. Dodoria and Zarbon have long heard her complain when not given the proper amount of forewarning and knowledge to maintain an edge of authority over her team. Growing up there had been two principles drilled into her as she worked to _be_ the leader among her peers. At all times you needed to hold relative power. And that required holding more might or more information. Both made your team members come to you. Both entailed that servile relationship. Both created the ideal form of the relationship of a soldier to their superior.

And yet Zarbon and Dodoria- perhaps Zarbon less so- were never willing to give the latter or any, in their words, "unnecessary" knowledge. They claimed to keep her mind lean so as to serve them better. She could understand that as a subordinate. But as a leader of her own she needed an edge over the others. Her relative strength was difficult to maintain- and, in recent years, may have been eclipsed in certain circumstances by certain team members- yet no other person at this base had as much of a connection to the true mind behind the PTO as her. No one else could claim to know Zarbon as well as her. He treated her fairly; perhaps more importantly, she knew him and his quirks well enough to deduce what she needed to know from the gaps in his answers.

But Dodoria never gave her anything he didn't choose to give. He was always prickly and armored. Always.

'That's it?' She prodded.

'I'll tell you soon.' He rolled one of his shoulders. 'Be satisfied with that.'

* * *

The glass of the tube was cold and white with condensed water and refracted light. With one hand Sashe cleared away a swath of its surface and peered inside. Beyond bubbling air and swirling liquid, it was him. There was a cross-shaped scar on his left pec she didn't remember, but otherwise he looked the same. The same mangy black hair and seemingly always dour and at-rest face.

And in stark difference to how he nearly always looked when awake, he seemed at peace unconscious.

It was harder to see his wounds, half-healed as they were, but they were present- deep cuts, clotted lines, and torn and charred flesh. It looked as if someone had thrown him through a star. Someone _may_ have thrown him through one for all she knew. No information had yet been given to them, and Cagoria was unusually tight-lipped. All they knew is that Broly was seriously injured.

If she was more concerned about her strength, she might have taken this as an ominous sign- that the likely strongest among their team was reduced to this. But she knew where she stood among her peers better than them and didn't need to be mightier than Broly to feel assured. If anything, Broly's greater strength had been used to his detriment. He fought in more battles farther from home and for longer periods of time. He conquered planets single-handedly as per the orders given to them. He was pushed harder than all of them combined. And he had the scars to show it.

Sashe closed her eyes and pressed her head against the glass. _Was he sleeping? Dreaming?..._ _Is he really as peaceful as he looks?..._

'Sashe?'

She pulled away from the glass- behind her, in the med bay's entrance, Vegeta stood silhouetted by the hallway's light with a metal canister tucked under his right arm. They stared at each other for a moment. 'So it is you,' he said as he strode into the room. 'Hard to tell from a distance.'

'Who else could it have been?' She turned. 'Who else has flat black hair?'

'Kakarot on a bad hair day,' Vegeta snarked, smiling, pausing to emphasize he was making a joke. Sashe's muted expression disheartened him, however, and his face fell to the floor as he finished crossing the room. 'In any event,' he resumed while placing the metal canister on the ground, 'why are you here?'

Sashe noted how he was slow to straighten and face her. 'How long has it been since we've last seen Broly? A year?' She glanced at his restoration tank. Bubbles flitted past his face and the mask strapped to his mouth and nose. 'He's changed since then. He has a new scar.'

There was a shuffling to her right- Vegeta was now sitting on the canister he had lugged into the room. 'I hardly consider that a noteworthy change. I've accrued my fair share of scars in that time, as have you, I'm sure.'

She stared at his knotted hands. 'Maybe.' Her eyes flicked to his. 'What you'd bring in here? What's in the canister?'

'This?' Vegeta patted his seat. 'I'm dropping this off. In it is a few things taken from his room- or what was in there before it was emptied out a few months ago.'

'Oh?' Sashe blinked at him. Right. They had emptied his room, saying that it was a bad use of space considering how much time he spent away from base on missions. Who had given that command? Zarbon? Dodoria?

'Cagoria reminded me where I had put it while she was barking at me earlier,' Vegeta said. 'I forgot she gave me the order to empty his room in the first place.'

 _Oh. Right._

The gentle thrum of Broly's tank melded together with the breathing of the station's vents above them.

'You don't have any idea what happened to him,' Sashe asked, 'do you?'

Vegeta's eyes were glued to the floor. 'No.'

'I see.' She struggled to dismiss a thought. 'Are… are you waiting for something?'

'Not really. Just sitting.'

'... I see.' Sashe had a fairly simple read of Vegeta, at least compared to the others. As the oldest of them all he carried a lot more with him wherever he went but showed none of it. She knew he had caused some of the scars present today on Broly's body. But as for why he was here? She had no idea. But he was brooding, still. And he could be so soul-suckingly morose when in that kind of mood.

'You know,' Vegeta began, talking at the floor. 'Before he left-'

'I'll leave you alone, Vegeta,' Sashe cut him off, striding away from Broly's tank. 'You look like you need a moment.'

Vegeta's head lifted; but when he went to say something he sighed before he could speak and dipped his head again. 'Alright.'

She felt a little cruel as she exited the room and gleaned the anxious expressions of some medical techs waiting to enter Broly's room after she and Vegeta had both left. But then again, neither him or her was anything new to them

* * *

Minutes-long silence, resting on them as comfortably as someone lounging on a huge and fluffy pillow, was broken as Kakarot stood and stretched. 'Well, that was fun.'

Cagoria turned over onto her other side and peered at him from the bed's other side. 'You sound _thrilled_.'

He fell back down after a few pulls of his arms. 'I'm distracted mostly. A little tense, too.'

'I noticed.'

Kakarot snorted. 'Yeah, wonder why.'

'Huh?'

Suddenly he shifted and laid on his side, facing her. 'Forget that. Let me ask you what I'm sure everyone else has already asked- what's going on? What happened to Broly? Why is Dodoria here?'

Cagoria sighed and spun her eyes to a corner of her room's ceiling. 'You too, huh?'

'You have to admit,' Kakarot said, playfully laying his head on a pillow, 'it's quite a mystery.'

'To you, maybe.'

' _Come onnnn!'_ He balanced his head on his hands like some overeager kid. 'Just tell me!

A tight expression swept over Cagoria's face. 'Dodoria will be telling everyone later. Just wait until then.'

'But I don't _want_ some fat, sour-smelling alien to tell me.' Kakarot's mischievous look swept over her. 'I want _you_ to.'

He had a strange way of flattering her. Cagoria felt her cheeks warm as she turned away from him and smiled at the wall. 'Nice try, but nope.'

'Really?' Kakarot's voice retained some levity, but as the seconds passed and Cagoria didn't turn back to him, his playful pose slackened. ' _...Really?'_ he repeated.

'No can do, my _love_ ,' Cagoria enthused, falling into their game. She rolled again to face him. 'For if I did that-hey, where are you going?'

In jerky motions Kakarot yanked his jumpsuit up his body. Muscled shoulder blades were zipped up and covered by elastic black. 'You're always like this,' he said, voice bordering on complaining.

Cagoria sat up and looked at him. 'Like what?'

'Like… this!' Kakarot said, flailing his hands towards her. 'So… distant. But not in a good way.'

Cagoria squinted at him. 'There's a _good_ way to be distant?'

'Maybe!' Kakarot exclaimed before bending and grabbing his armor. He threw it over his head and shoved his arms through. 'Others might use that distance to protect themselves, I don't know- but you use it to put yourself above us!'

She looked past him at the room's door. Kakarot was inching towards it. 'Nonsense,' she replied, glancing back at him with a stern look. 'That's nonsense.'

'Is it?' He returned her gaze just as sternly. 'Because keeping us in the loop about what's going on would help yourself, you know.' He patted his armor to make sure it was in place and sat on the bed's edge to pull on his boots. 'Zarbon and Dodoria both treat us like tools to be used, with the only difference being that Zarbon treats us like scalpels and Dodoria treats us like hammers.' His boots clacked against the metal floor as he stood and turned to her. 'And sometimes the people who wield us don't have our personal wellbeing in mind.' He paused as his gaze lingered on her. 'Yours included.'

'What?'

'I'm hungry.' Kakarot grabbed his last item- his scouter laying on her nightstand. 'So I'm going to go eat so that I'm shocked with a full stomach.' The room's door hissed open. 'Seeya around.'

Sheets bunched around her body as her legs crossed and shifted for a few seconds after he had left. A bough of her hair had fallen across her face. 'What was that about?...'

* * *

She walked the line: Vegeta, Kakarot, and Sashe each gave her a taut nod of their head before straightening in their armor and staring ahead. Everyone else- the one hundred-odd base personnel who kept this place running- was already rigid as poles behind her team, not daring to do so much as breathe if it made them stand out. The reception hall was just large enough to pack every living person on this planet except one into this room. That last, instead, held the small platform at the room's narrowest point, cursing as he grappled with a standing mic.

Dodoria had let a day go by without explaining why he was here to make them stew. It was a common practice among the higher-ups of the PTO to let the grunts unnerve themselves until they clammed up and started saying or doing what was wanted of them- true or not.

Cagoria only wished she wasn't on the same side as the grunts. One entire day had passed and she had been told nothing.

'This on?' Dodoria growled into the mic. He caught his voice echoing back across the room. 'Well… good.' He gripped his arm and adjusted how his bulk pressed against it. 'I'm sure you're all _very_ interested to know why I'm here. It's been at least five years since I've been to this _backwater_ place,' he grumbled, 'and I wished it could have been at least five more. But something _bad_ happened.'

His beady eyes searched through the crowd. Nervous faces looked away. 'One of the Vanguard's _own_ , Broly, nearly _died_ out there. Not usually something we should usually be worried about- but it's the _way_ he almost died that makes this place _stink._ '

Cagoria flinched as Dodoria's gaze passed over them and spent a precious second examining each member of her team. 'So I'll come out and say it. Without warning Broly's pod lost _all_ power en route to a new planet. And his ship's life support system hasn't been serviced since leaving this base four months ago. So you know what that means?'

The tension in the room seemed to suffocate the vents' breathing above them. Dodoria's gaze landed on Cagoria.

'Someone at this base sabotaged Broly's pod. Someone here is a _traitor_.'

* * *

A/N: Another chapter! This time an entire year didn't pass. Going forward I might try and update this fic once a month. It's not super difficult to write (not as long as my other one), at the very least.

 **Reviews:**

 **NarupokeeAurorafan:** Glad you enjoyed the chapter! Hope you enjoy this one too :^)

 **Guest:** Yep, Kakarot kinda is a troll! Vegeta makes it easy.


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